indulgent than he ought to be."

Lulu began to cry again. "I don't like men-teachers!" she sobbed. "I
don't like a man to have any thing to do with me. Please, please don't
send me there, papa!"

"You want me to relent, and let you stay on here if they will have you?"

"No, no, papa! I don't want to stay here! I don't want to see anybody
here again, except Max and Gracie; because I'm so ashamed of--of what
I've done. I couldn't look any of them in the face, for I know they must
despise me."

"I am sure you are mistaken in that, my child," he said gravely. "But
what is it you do desire?"

"To be with you, papa. Oh, if I could only go with you!"

"And leave Max and Gracie?"

"I'll have to leave them, anyhow, if you take me away from here; and,
though I love them very much, I love you a great deal better."

"I'm afraid you would have a doleful time on shipboard, with no young
companions, nobody to see or speak to but your father and the other
officers."

"I wouldn't care for that, or any thing, if I could only be with you.
Papa, you don't _know_ how I love you!"

"Then, I'll take you with me when I leave here; and you need never live
away from me any more, unless you choose."

"Papa," she cried, lifting her head to look up into his face, with glad,
astonished eyes, "do you really mean it? _May_ I go with you?"

He held her close, with a joyous laugh.

"Why, I understood you to say, a moment since, that you didn't want to
be in the care of a man,--_any_ man."

"But you know I didn't mean you, papa."

"But I am the gentleman I spoke of a little while ago, as the one in
whose care I intended to put you."

"Papa," she said, with a bewildered look, "I don't understand."

Then he told her; and she was, as Max had foreseen, almost wild with
delight.

"Oh!" she cried, "how nice, _nice_ it will be to have a home of our very
own, and our father with us all the time! Papa, I think I sha'n't sleep
a wink to-night, I'm so glad."

"I trust it will not have that effect," he said, "I hesitated a little
about telling you to-night, lest it might interfere with your rest; but
you seemed so unhappy about your future prospects, that I felt I must
relieve you of the fear of being sent away among strangers."

"You are so very good and kind to me, papa," she returned gratefully.
"Where is our dear home to be?"

"I don't know, yet," he said. "I have not had time to look about in
search of house or land; but I hope to be