"No, indeed! Haven"t we had a nice time, Max? Oh, if only we could keep papa all the time!"
"I wish we could," said Max. "But we won"t have so hard a time as we"ve had for the last two years whenever he was away."
They had reached the door of Lulu"s room. "Max," she said, turning to him as with a sudden thought, "what do you suppose papa is coming to our rooms for?"
"What do _you_ suppose? have you done anything you ought to be punished for?" asked Max, a little mischievously. "I thought you looked very cross and rebellious about the hat and about having to come home so soon. I"m very sure, from what I"ve heard of Grandpa Dinsmore"s strictness, that if you were his child you"d get a whipping for it."
Lulu looked frightened.
"But, Max, you don"t think papa means to punish me for that, do you? He has been so kind and pleasant since," she said, with a slight tremble in her voice.
"You"ll find out when he comes," laughed Max. "Good-night," and he hastened away to his own room.
A guilty conscience made Lulu very uneasy as she hurried through her preparations for bed, and as she heard her father"s step approach the door she grew quite frightened.
He came in and closed it after him. Lulu was standing in her night-dress, just ready for bed. He caught up a heavy shawl, wrapped it about her, and seating himself lifted her to his knee.
"Why, how you are trembling!" he exclaimed. "What is the matter?"
"O papa! are you--are you going to punish me for being so naughty this evening?" she asked, hanging her head while her cheeks grew red.
"That was not my intention in coming in here," he said. "But, Lulu, your wilfulness is a cause of great anxiety to me. I hardly know what to do with you. I am very loath to burden our kind friends--Grandpa Dinsmore and Grandma Elsie--with so rebellious and unmanageable a child, for it will be painful to them to be severe with you, and yet I see that you will compel them to it."
"I won"t be punished by anybody but you! n.o.body else has a right!" burst out Lulu.
"Yes, my child, I have given them the right, and the only way for you to escape punishment is not to deserve it. And if you prove too troublesome for them, you are to be sent to a boarding-school, and that, you will understand, involves separation from Max and Gracie, and life among total strangers."
"Papa, you wouldn"t, you couldn"t be so cruel!" she said, bursting into tears and hiding her face on his breast.
"I hope you will not be so cruel to yourself as to make it necessary," he said. "I have fondly hoped you were improving, but your conduct to-night shows me that you are still a self-willed, rebellious child."
"Well, papa, I"ve wanted a bird on my hat for ever so long, and I believe you would have let me have it, too, if Mamma Vi and Grandma Elsie hadn"t said that."
"I shouldn"t let you have it, if they were both in favor of it," he said severely.
"Why, papa?"
"Because of the cruelty it would encourage. And now, Lucilla, I want you to reflect how very kind it is in Grandpa Dinsmore and Grandma Elsie to be willing to take my children in and share with them their own delightful home. You have not the slightest claim upon their kindness, and very few people in their case would have made such an offer. I really feel almost ashamed to accept so much without being able to make some return, even if I knew my children would all behave as dutifully and gratefully as possible. And knowing how likely your conduct is to be the exact reverse of that, I can hardly reconcile it to my conscience to let you go with them to Ion. I am afraid I ought to place you in a boarding-school at once, before I am ordered away."
"O papa, don"t!" she begged. "I"ll try to behave better."
"You must promise more than that," he said; "promise me that you will yield to the authority of your mamma and her mother and grandfather as if it were mine; obeying their orders and submitting to any punishment they may see fit to inflict, just as if it were my act."
"Papa, have you said they might punish me?" she asked, with a look of wounded pride.
"Yes; I have full confidence in their wisdom and kindness. I know they will not abuse the authority I give them, and I have told them they may use any measures with my children that they would with their own in the same circ.u.mstances. Are you ready to give the promise I require?"
"Papa, it is too hard!"
"The choice is between that and being sent to boarding-school."
"Oh, it"s so hard!" she sobbed.
"Not hard at all if you choose to be good," her father said. "In that case you will have a delightful life at Ion. Do you make the promise?"
"Yes, sir," she said, as if the words were wrung from her, then hid her face on his breast again and cried bitterly.
"My little daughter, these are tears of pride and stubbornness," sighed her father, pa.s.sing his hand caressingly over her hair, "and you will never be happy until those evil pa.s.sions are cast out of your heart. They are foes which you must fight and conquer by the help of Him who is mighty to save, or they will cost you the loss of your soul. Any sin unrepented of and unforsaken will drag you down to eternal death; for the Bible says, "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.""
"Papa," she said, "you are the only person G.o.d commands me to obey, and I"m willing to do that."
"No, it seems not, when my command is that you obey some one else. My little girl, you need something that I cannot give you; and that is a change of heart. Go to Jesus for it, daughter; ask Him to wash away all your sins in His precious blood and to create in you a clean heart and renew a right spirit within you. He is able and willing to do it, for He says, "Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out." We will kneel down and ask Him now."
"Papa, I do love you so, I love you dearly, and I _will_ try to be a better girl," Lulu said, clasping her arms tightly about his neck, as, having laid her in her bed, he bent down to kiss her good-night.
"I hope so, my darling," he said; "nothing could make me happier than to know you to be a truly good child, trying to live right that you may please the dear Saviour who died that you might live."
Max, lying in his bed, was just saying to himself, "I wonder what keeps papa so long," when he heard his step on the stairs.
"Are you awake, Max?" the captain asked, as he opened the door and came in.
"Yes, sir," was the cheerful response; "it"s early, you know, papa, and I"m not at all sleepy."
"That is well, for I want a little talk with you," said his father, sitting down on the side of the bed and taking Max"s hand in his.
The talk was on the sin of profanity. Max was told to repeat the third commandment, then his father called his attention to the words, "The Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain."
"It is a dreadful and dangerous sin, my son," he said; "a most foolish sin, too, for there is absolutely nothing to be gained by it; and the meanest of sins, for what can be meaner than to abuse Him to whom we owe our being and every blessing we enjoy?"
"Yes, papa, and I--I"ve done it a good many times. Do you think G.o.d will ever forgive me?" Max asked in trembling tones.
""He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy." "I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions, for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins,""
quoted the captain.
"Yes, my son, if you are truly sorry for your sins because committed against G.o.d, and confess them with the determination to forsake them, asking forgiveness and help to overcome the evil of your nature, for Jesus" sake, it will be granted you. "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.""
CHAPTER IV.
"No day discolored with domestic strife, No jealousy, but mutual truth believ"d, Secure repose and kindness undeceiv"d."
--Dryden.
They were a bright and cheery company in the other house. They had divided into groups. Mrs. Elsie Travilla sat in a low rocking-chair, between her father and his wife, with her little grandson on her lap. She doated on the babe, and was often to be seen with it in her arms. She was now calling her father"s attention to its beauty, and talking of the time when its mother was an infant, her own precious darling.
On a sofa on the farther side of the room the two sisters, Elsie and Violet, sat side by side, cosily chatting of things past and present, while a little removed from them Lester, Edward and Zoe formed another group.