A week or more had passed since the return of our friends from their
vacation in the more northern part of their loved native land, and Lulu
and Grace, who had at first missed their older brother sorely from the
family circle, had now begun to feel somewhat accustomed to his absence,
and were very merry and happy.
They had resumed their studies, reciting, as before, to their father,
and took daily walks and rides on their ponies, varied by an occasional
drive with the captain, Violet, and the little ones.
The Ion and Fairview families, too, had gone back to old pleasures and
employments; but so busy had all been, taking up familiar cares and
duties, and making needed preparations for approaching winter, that only
few and short visits had as yet been exchanged between them.
It was in the sitting-room, and just after breakfast, that the captain
had read Max's letter aloud to his wife and children.
"Go to the schoolroom now, daughters, and look over your lessons for the
day," he said, presently, addressing Lulu and Grace.
They obeyed instantly, and as they left the room a servant came in with
a note from Violet's mother, which he handed to his mistress, saying one
of the Ion servants had just brought it.
"Mamma's handwriting," Violet remarked to her husband as she took the
note and glanced at the address upon it.
"Ah! I hope they are all well?" he returned half inquiringly.
"No, mamma herself is certainly not quite well," Violet answered with a
disturbed look, after glancing hastily down the page; "she says as much,
and that she wants me to come and spend a few days with her, bringing
all the children if I choose; they will not disturb her. And you also
will be most welcome. Dear, dear mamma! I shall go to her at
once--unless my husband objects," she added, looking up at him with a
rather sad sort of smile.
"As he certainly could not think of doing, my love," he replied, in
tender tones. "We must go, of course; you and the little ones, at least;
we will consider about the older ones, and I shall spend my time between
the two places, not being willing to stay constantly away from you, yet
having some matters to attend to here, some things that ought not to be
delayed."
"But you will be with us a part of every day?" returned Violet, with a
wistful half-inquiring look up into his face.
"Yes, oh yes!" he hastened to say; "with my wife so near at hand I could
not let a day go by without inflicting my presence upon her for some
small part of it," he concluded in a half jesting tone, and with a fond
look down into the sweet, troubled face; for he was standing close at
her side.
"I think it could not be harder for you than for me, my dear," she
returned, with a loving smile up at him. "I should like to take all the
children," she went on, "but Alma is here to make up some dresses for
Lulu, and will need her at hand to try them on and make sure of the
fit."
"And I should seriously object to allowing Lulu to drop her studies
again just as she has made a fresh and fair start with them," said the
captain; "so of course she will have to stay at home. Grace also, I
think, as there would be the same objection to her absence from home--as
regards the lessons I mean."
"But if you will allow it, I can hear her recite at Ion," Violet said.
"She could learn her lessons there and still have a good deal of time to
play with her little sister, who thinks no one else quite equal to her
Gracie,--as she calls her,--for a playfellow."
"Well, my dear, we will make that arrangement if you wish it,"
responded the captain.
"And yet how Lulu will miss her," Violet said, a troubled look coming
over her face. "I wish we could manage it so that she could go too, the
dear child!"
"I should be glad to give her the pleasure," returned Captain Raymond;
"but really think it will not do to have her studies so interfered with
now when she has but just well settled down to them. It will be a little
hard for her, but perhaps not a bad lesson in patience and self-denial."
"But a lesson I fear she will not enjoy," remarked Violet, with a
regretful smile.
Going into the schoolroom presently the captain found his two little
girls industriously busy with their tasks.
"Gracie, daughter," he said, "your mamma is going over to Ion for a few
days, because Grandma Elsie is not very well and wants her companionship,
and Mamma Vi wants you,--for little Elsie's sake,--having found you very
successful in entertaining her and baby Ned. We are all invited, indeed;
but I must be here the greater part of the time, as I have various matters
to oversee, and Lulu cannot be spared from home as Alma is at work upon
some dresses for her, and I wish her to go on diligently with her studies."
"But don't I need to be attending to mine, papa?" queried Grace, looking
regretfully at her sister, over whose face had come a look of keen
disappointment, succeeding one of pleased anticipation called out by the
beginning of her father's communication.
"Yes," he said, with a smile; "we are going to let you attend to them
there, Mamma Vi acting as governess."
"Isn't she willing to do the same for me too, papa?" asked Lulu, in a
slightly hurt tone.
"I think so," he answered pleasantly; "but there is the dressmaking, and
I couldn't think of such a thing as asking to have that carried on at
Ion."
Lulu seemed to have nothing more to say and Grace gave her a troubled
look; then, with a little hesitation, "Papa," she said, "I--I think I'd
rather stay at home with Lu, if I may."
"No, daughter," he answered, still speaking very pleasantly. "I have not
time to give my reasons just now; but I want you to go, and Lulu to
stay. It will probably be for only a few days; and I think she may trust
her father not to allow her to be very lonely in the meanwhile," he
added, with a smile directed to Lulu, but which she did not seem to see,
keeping her face down and her eyes fixed upon her book.
Then he left the room, saying to Grace as he went out, "Make haste,
daughter, to gather up your books and whatever else you may wish to
take with you. I have already ordered the carriage and there is no time
to waste. Lulu may help you if she will."
"Will you, Lu?" asked Grace, with a very sympathizing look at her
sister. "Oh, I wish papa had said you were to go too! Whatever shall I
do without my dear, big sister!"
"Never mind, Gracie; I'm sure I don't want to go where I'm not wanted,"
replied Lulu, in a hurt tone.
"I'm sure it isn't because they wouldn't like to have you there,"
returned Grace, running to her sister and putting her arms about her
neck.
"Why don't they ask me, then?" queried Lulu, a little angrily.
"May be they did. I'm most sure Grandma Elsie wouldn't forget to include
you in her invitation; and, oh, yes! don't you remember papa did say we
were all invited? But you know there are the lessons, and I suppose papa
would rather hear them himself."
"But he could hear them there."
"Yes; so he could if he wanted to. But then there's the dressmaking, you
know."
"That could be put off for a few days," returned Lulu, with a very
grown-up air. "There are plenty of ways when people want to do a
thing--plenty of excuses to be thought of when they don't. Alma has
numerous customers and could sew for somebody else first, giving her my
time, and me hers after we get home."
"Oh, maybe it could be managed in that way!" exclaimed Grace joyously;
"and I'd so much rather have you along. I think I'll ask papa."
"No, don't you do any such thing," returned Lulu, in a not particularly
amiable tone. "If I'm not wanted, I'm sure I don't wish to go. But
you'll have to hurry, Gracie. You know papa is very particular about our
being prompt in obeying his orders."
"Yes," returned Grace, who was again at her desk, "but I have been busy
all this time getting out the books and other things I must take along,
and now I'll go upstairs and get dressed and put up the things there
that I want. Won't you go with me? You'll know so much better than I
what I need to take."
"Yes, Gracie, dear; I'll be glad to give you all the help I can. I'm
glad papa said I might. Oh, but it will be lonely here without you! I do
think papa might have said I could go, too."
"I'd be ever so glad if he had, or would," said Grace, as hand in hand
they left the room together, "but you know, Lu dear, we always find out
in the end that his way is the best."
"So we do, and I'll try to believe it now," returned Lulu, in a more
cheerful tone than she had used since learning that the rest of the
family were to go to Ion and she was to remain at home.
With her good help Grace was ready in a few minutes, and just then they
heard their father call to her to come at once, as the carriage was at
the door.
The sisters embraced each other hastily, Grace saying, "Oh, Lu, good-by,
I do wish you were going along, for I can hardly bear to go without
you."
"Never mind, but just try to enjoy yourself as much as ever you can,"
returned Lulu. "Go down now, dearie, for we should never keep papa
waiting, you know. Here's Agnes to carry down your satchel. I hope you
won't stay long enough away from me to need many clothes, and if you do
it will be easy enough to send them--the carriage going back and forth
every day."
Grace was half-way down the stairs before Lulu had finished.
"Ain't you a gwine down to see de folks off, Miss Lulu?" queried Agnes,
as she took up the satchel.
"No," returned Lulu shortly; "I'm going back to the schoolroom to attend
to my lessons."
Agnes gave her a look of surprise as she left the room, thinking she had
never known Miss Lu fail to be at the door when any of the other
members of the family were leaving for more than a short drive, and she
staying behind.
"Where is Lulu, Gracie?" asked Violet, as the captain handed the little
girl into the carriage. "I hadn't time to hunt her up, and thought she
would be here at the door to say good-by to us all."
"She said she must hurry back to her lessons, mamma," answered Grace,
blushing for her sister. "You see she stopped to help me get ready, and
I suppose she's afraid she'll not know them well by the time papa wants
to hear her recite."
"It would have taken very little of her time," the captain remarked,
with a grave and somewhat displeased look.
"Oh, well, you can bring her over to Ion, perhaps this afternoon or
to-morrow, for a call, Levis," Violet hastened to say in a cheery tone.
"Possibly," he answered, and was about to step into the carriage when a
servant came hurrying up to ask directions in regard to some work to be
done in the grounds.
"My dear," said the captain to Violet, "I think it would be better for
you and the children to drive on without waiting for me. I shall
probably follow you in another hour or two."
"Very well; please don't disappoint us if you can help it," returned
Violet, and the carriage drove on, while Captain Raymond walked away in
the opposite direction, to give the needed orders to his men.
"I think it's a shame that I should be left behind when all the rest of
the family are going to Ion to have a good time," muttered Lulu angrily,
as she seated herself at her desk again and opened a book. "Papa could
hear my lessons there just as well as here if he chose, and Mamma Vi
might have arranged to have my dresses made a week or two later."
"Miss Lu," said Agnes, opening the door and putting in her head, "Miss
Alma tole me for to tell you she's 'bout ready fo' to try on yo' new
dress."
"Tell her to take it to my room. I'll go up there to have it tried on,"
replied Lulu, in a vexed, impatient tone.
Then, as Agnes withdrew her head and closed the door, "Horrid thing! why
couldn't she have come to me while I was up there? Here I am, hardly
fairly settled to my work, and I must drop it and go back again. I'd
better take my book with me, for there's no knowing how long she may
keep me while she alters something that she has got wrong, for she's
generally too stupid to make a thing right at the first trial. Well,
perhaps she'll get done by the time papa comes back and is ready to hear
me recite."
So saying she went slowly from the school room and upstairs to her own
apartment.
There were a few minutes of waiting for Alma, which did not improve
Lulu's temper, and as the girl came in she received an angry glance,
accompanied by the remark, in no very pleasant tones, that she had no
business to send for people till she was ready to attend to them.
At that Alma colored painfully. "I am sorry to have inconvenienced you,
Miss Lu," she said, "but I'll try not to keep you so very long."
"If you don't, it will be about the first time that you haven't,"
snapped Lulu. "I think you are just about the slowest, most blundering
dressmaker I ever did see."
At that unkind remark, Alma's eyes filled with tears, but she went on
silently with her work, making no rejoinder, while Lulu--the reproaches
of conscience rendering her uneasy and irritable--fidgetted and fussed,
thus greatly increasing the difficulty of the task.
"Miss Lu," Alma said at last, in a despairing tone, "if you can't keep
stiller, it is not possible for me to make the dress to fit you right."
"Indeed!" returned Lulu scornfully, "I don't feel sure of your ability
to fit it right under any circumstances--such a stupid, awkward thing as
you are, and----"
Her sentence was left unfinished, for at that instant, to her
astonishment and dismay, her father's voice called to her from his
dressing-room, in sterner accents than she had heard from him in a long
while. "Lucilla, come here to me!" She had not known of his detention at
home, but supposed he had gone with the others to Ion.
Jerking off the waist, which Alma had already unfastened,--snatching up
a dressing-sack and putting it on as she went,--she appeared before him,
blushing and shamefaced.
"I am both surprised and mortified by what I have just overheard," he
said. "I had a better opinion of my dear, eldest daughter than to
suppose she would ever show herself so heartless. You surely must have
forgotten that poor Alma is a stranger, in a strange land, while you are
at home, in your father's house. Go to her now, and apologize for your
rudeness."
Lulu made no movement to obey, but stood before him in sullen silence
and with downcast, scowling countenance.
He waited a moment; then said sternly, "Lucilla, you will yield instant
obedience to my order, or go immediately to your own room, and not
venture into my presence again until you can tell me you have obeyed."
At that she turned and left the room, more angry and rebellious than she
had ever been since that dreadful time at Ion when her indulgence in a
fit of passion had so nearly cost little Elsie's life.
"Papa will have a pretty time making me do it," she muttered angrily to
herself, as she stood by a window in her bedroom looking out into the
grounds. "Ask Alma's pardon, indeed! She's not even a lady; she's
nothing but a poor woman, who has to support herself with her
needle,--or rather with a sewing machine, and cutting and fitting,--and
I think it's just outrageous for papa to tell me I must ask her pardon.
I'll not do it, and papa needn't think he can make me, though----" she
added, uneasily, the next minute, "to be sure, he always has made me
obey him; but I'm older now; too old, I think, even he would say, to be
whipped into doing what I don't choose to do.
"But he forbade me to come into his presence till I obeyed, and--oh,
dear, I can't live that way, because I love him so--better than any one
else in all the wide world; and--and--it would just kill me to have to
go without his love and his caresses; never to have him hug and kiss me,
and call me his dear child, his darling. Oh, I couldn't bear it! I never
could! it would just break my heart!" and her tears began to fall like
rain.
She cried quite violently for a while; then began to think of Alma more
kindly and pityingly than ever before, as an orphan and a stranger in a
strange land.
"Oh, I am ashamed to have treated her so!" she exclaimed at length, "and
I will ask her pardon; not only because papa has ordered me to do so,
but because I am sorry for her, and really mortified to think of having
treated her so badly."
Fortunately, just at that moment Alma's timid rap was heard at the door
and her voice saying, in a hesitating, deprecating way, "Miss Lu,
please, I need to try the dress once more. I'm very sorry to disturb and
trouble you, but I know you want it to be a good fit."
"Yes, of course I do, Alma," returned Lulu gently, opening the door as
she spoke; "you are quite right to come back with it. I'm sorry and
ashamed of having been so rude and unkind to you when you were in here
before," she added, holding out her hand. "It was shameful treatment.
Papa said I must ask your pardon, and I think I would do it now, even if
he hadn't ordered me."
"It is too much, Miss Lu," Alma said, blushing, and with tears in her
eyes. "I could never ask such a thing as that of a young lady like you."
"Indeed, my behavior has been very unladylike to-day," sighed Lulu; "and
papa is very, very much displeased with me."
"I am sorry, Miss," Alma responded, in a sympathizing tone. "But the
captain will not stay angry; he is so very fond of his children."
"Yes; and so kind and indulgent that I ought to be the best girl in the
world. Oh, I wish I had not behaved so badly!"
"He will forgive you, Miss; he will not stay displeased, for his love
for you is so very great," returned Alma. "There, Miss, the dress does
fit you now. See in the glass. Does it not?"
"Yes," Lulu replied, surveying herself in the mirror; "I could not ask a
better fit, Alma."
"It is lovely, Miss Lu; the stuff so fine and soft, and the colors so
beautiful!" remarked the girl, gazing upon it with admiring eyes. "It is
good, Miss Lu, to have a kind papa, rich enough to gif you all things
needful for a young lady to wear."
"Yes, and so generous and kind as mine is," sighed Lulu. "It is a very
great shame that I ever do anything to displease him."
Alma went back to the sewing-room, and Lulu hastened to the door of the
room where her father had been when he called to her. But a glance
within showed her that he was not there now. Then she ran downstairs and
through library, parlors, halls,--everywhere,--looking for him.
"Oh, where is he?" she sighed. "I must find him and tell him how sorry I
am for my naughtiness. I can't have one minute of happiness till I have
done so and got a kiss of forgiveness."
Snatching a hat from the rack and putting it on as she went, she ran out
and round the porches and the grounds; but nowhere was he to be seen.
"Miss Lu," called a servant, at length, "is you lookin' fo' de cap'n?
He's done gone to Ion, I 'spects; kase dere's whar Miss Wi'let went in
de kerridge."
"Did he say when he would come back?" asked Lulu, steadying her voice
with quite an effort.
"He gwine come back dis evenin' fo' suah, Miss Lu, to see 'bout de work
on de plantation," was the reply, as the man turned to his employment
again. And with a heavy sigh Lulu turned about and re-entered the house.
"Oh, it's so lonesome for me here all by myself!" she said half-aloud.
But there was no one near enough to hear her, and she went back to her
tasks, trying to forget her troubles in study; an effort in which she
was for the time partially successful.