"are you intending to be
so very, very kind as to take me for one of your pupils?"

"Most assuredly, my dear, if you wish it," he replied.

"Oh, thank you, sir! thank you very much indeed, and I promise to give
you as little trouble as I possibly can."

"I shall consider it no trouble at all, my dear child," he returned,
giving her a fatherly smile. "Indeed, I think the favor will be on
your side, as doubtless Lulu will improve all the faster for your
companionship in her studies. Rosie, being older than either of you,
will, I fear, have to be quite alone in most of hers."

"Yes, Brother Levis, and as I am to be such a lonely, forlorn creature
you ought to be extremely good to me," remarked Rosie demurely. "I hope
you will remember that and try to have unlimited patience with your
youngest sister."

"Ah! my little sister would better not try the patience of her big
brother too far," returned the captain with a twinkle of fun in his eye.

"I dare say; but he needn't think he can make me very much afraid of
him, big as he is," laughed Rosie.

"Perhaps, though, it might turn out to the advantage of Professor
Manton, should my youngest sister prove quite beyond the management of
her biggest and oldest brother," remarked the captain, with assumed
gravity.

"There!" exclaimed Rosie, "that's the worst threat you could possibly
have made. I think I'll try to be at least passably good and obedient in
the schoolroom. You needn't look for it in any other place, Captain
Raymond," making him a deep courtesy, then dancing gayly away.

"Don't you envy her that it is only in the schoolroom she must be
obedient to me, whom you have to obey all the time?" asked the captain
laughingly of Lulu, noticing that she was watching Rosie with a hurt,
almost indignant look on her expressive features.

"No, indeed, papa! I'm only too glad that I belong to you everywhere
and all the time," she answered, lifting to his face eyes full of filial
respect and ardent affection.

"So am I," he returned, pressing tenderly the hand she had again slipped
into his. "But you must not be vexed with Rosie. Could you not see that
all she said just now was in sportive jest?"

"I'm glad if she didn't mean it, papa; but I don't like such things said
to my dear, honored father even in jest."

"But you must excuse Rosie, Lu, dear," said Evelyn. "It was indeed all
in jest, for I know that she feels the very highest respect for your
father--her biggest br