her by yourselves. I think you would find it
lonely staying here, and Lulu would not half enjoy her evening without
you."

"You are right, auntie: I will go," Evelyn answered, more cheerfully
than she had spoken since reading her letter. "I will dress at once,
but shall not need any help except advice about what I shall wear."

Elsie gave it, and, saying the carriage would be at the door in half an
hour, went back to her own apartments, to attend to the proper adornment
of her own pretty person.

Soon after her little talk with grandma Elsie and mamma Vi, Lulu, still
unable to banish the anxiety which made her restless and uneasy,
wandered out into the shrubbery, where she presently met Max.

"I've been all round the place," he said; "and I tell you, Lu, it's in
prime order: every thing's as neat as a pin. Don't the grounds look
lovely, even after Viamede?"

"Yes," she sighed, glancing round from side to side with a melancholy
expression of countenance quite unusual with her.

"What's the matter, sis?" he asked with some surprise: "I hope you're
not sick?"

"No, I'm perfectly well," she answered; "but, the prettier the place
looks, the sorrier I feel to think I may have to go away and leave it."

"Who says you are to go away?" he demanded,--"not grandma Elsie, or
mamma Vi either, I am sure, for they're both too kind; and, in fact, I
don't believe anybody here wants to send you off."

"Maybe not," she said, "but I'll have to go if papa says so; and, O Max!
I'm so afraid he will, because of--all that--all the trouble between
grandpa Dinsmore and me about the music-lessons."

"I didn't suppose papa had been told about it?" he remarked, half
inquiringly.

"Yes," she said: "I confessed every bit of it to him in that letter I
wrote at Magnolia Hall."

"Bully for you!" cried Max heartily. "I knew you'd own up at last, like
a brick, as you are."

"O Max! you forget that mamma Vi does not approve of slang," she said.
"But I don't deserve a bit of praise for confessing, because I had to.
Papa wrote to me that he was sure I'd been misbehaving,--though nobody
had told him a single word about it,--and that I must write at once, and
tell him every thing."

"Well, I'm glad you did; and I hope he won't be hard on you, Lu. Still,
I wouldn't like to be in your place, for papa can be quite severe when
he thinks it necessary. I wouldn't fret, though," he added in a
consolatory tone, "because there's no use trying to cross