iddle of the floor, fairly struck
dumb with indignation, astonishment, and dismay.

"How dared Agnes--a mulatto servant-girl,--talk so to her! But was the
baby really dying? Would papa never come to tell her the truth about it?
She wouldn't believe any thing so dreadful till she heard it from him:
very likely Agnes was only trying to torment her, and make her as
miserable as possible."

She had sunk, trembling, into a chair, feeling as if she should never
want to eat again; but with that last thought, her hopes revived, hunger
once more asserted its sway, and she ate her breakfast with a good deal
of appetite and relish.

But, when hunger was appeased, fears and anxieties renewed their
assault: she grew half distracted with them, as hour after hour passed
on, and no one came near her except another maid, to take away the
breakfast-dishes and tidy the room.

On her, Lulu turned her back, holding an open book in her hand, and
pretending to be deeply absorbed in its contents, though not a word of
the sense was she taking in; for, intense as was her desire to learn
the baby's condition, she would not risk any more such stabs to her
sensitiveness and pride as had been given by Agnes.

This one came, did her work, and went away again in silence; but all the
time she was in the room, Lulu felt that she was casting glances of
disgust and disfavor at her. She could not breathe freely till the girl
had left the room.

She thought surely the dinner-hour would bring her father; but it did
not: her wants were again supplied by a servant.

CHAPTER XIV.

"The dread of evil is the worst of ill."

On leaving the breakfast-room, Violet hastened back to the nursery; but
the captain, calling Max and Grace into her boudoir, said, as he took
the little girl on his knee, and motioned Max to sit by his side,--

"I have some news for you, my children: can you guess what it is?"

"Something good, I hope, papa," said Max: "you look as if it was."

"I am very much pleased with my share of it," the captain said, smiling;
"and I shall know presently, I presume, what you two think of yours.
What would you like it to be, Gracie?"

"That my papa was never, never going away any more," she answered
promptly, lifting loving eyes to his face.

"There couldn't be better news than that," remarked Max; "but," with a
profound sigh, "of course it can't be that."

"Ah! don't be quite so sure, young man," laughed his father.

"Papa, yo