may get your typewriter ready for work," he said presently.
"Put in a sheet of this paper," taking some from a drawer in the table
and laying it beside the machine, "date it, and in a moment I will tell
you what to say."

He had already instructed her carefully in punctuation and paragraphing:
spelling also; and, with an occasional direction in regard to such
matters, she did her work well.

She was full of joy when at the close of the business he bestowed upon
her a judicious amount of praise and said that she had proved a great
help to him, shortening his labor very considerably.

"I think," he concluded, "that before long my dear eldest daughter will
prove a valuable amanuensis for me."

"Papa, I am so glad!" she cried, her cheeks flushing and her eyes
sparkling. "Oh, there is nothing else in the world that I enjoy so much
as being a help and comfort to my dear, dear father!"

"My precious little daughter," he responded, "words cannot express the
love your father feels for you. Now there is one letter that I wish to
write with my own hand, and while I am doing that you may amuse yourself
in any way you like."

"May I read this, papa?" she asked, taking up a magazine.

"Yes," he said, and she went quietly from the room with it in her hand.

She seated herself on the back veranda, read a short story, then stole
softly back to the library door to see if her father had finished his
letter so that she might talk to him.

But some one else was there; a stranger she thought, though she did not
get a view of his face.

She paused on the threshold, uncertain whether her father would wish her
to be present at the interview, and at that instant he spoke, apparently
in reply to something his caller had said, and his words riveted her to
the spot.

"No," he said, in stern tones, "had I been here my daughter would never
have been sent back to your school. She was most unjustly and shamefully
treated by that fiery little Italian, and you, sir, upheld him in it.
When I am at hand no daughter of mine shall be struck by another man, or
woman either, with impunity, and Foresti may deem himself fortunate in
that I was at a distance when he ventured to commit so great an outrage
upon my child."

Lulu waited to hear no more, but ran back to the veranda, where she
danced about in a tumult of delight, clapping her hands and saying
exultingly to herself, "I just knew papa wouldn't have made me go back
to that horrid school and