here. Aren't you
happy, Lu?"

"I shall be if papa gets it; but the best thing of all is, that he is to
be with us all the time."

"Yes, of course," sighed Evelyn, thinking of the happy days when she had
her father with her. "Lu," she said presently, "I know you are not to be
sent away; but where are you to go to school?"

"To papa," replied Lulu, with a glad look and smile.

Evelyn sighed again. "The only part I regret," she remarked, "is that we
have to give up being together in our studies,--you and I. Unless," she
added the next moment, as if struck by a sudden thought, "your father
would take me as a pupil too. But I wouldn't dare to ask it."

"I would," said Max: "I dare ask papa almost any thing,--unless it was
leave to do something wrong,--and I'll undertake to sound him on the
subject."

"I'm not afraid to ask him, either," said Lulu; "and he's so kind, I do
believe he'll say yes, or at least that he'll do it if everybody else is
agreed. Have you seen him, Eva?"

"Yes; and he had such a kind, fatherly manner toward me, that I fell in
love with him at once. I believe I'd be glad to have him adopt me if he
was badly in want of another daughter about my age," she added, with a
merry look and smile.

"I believe he'd be the gainer if he could swap me off for you," said
Lulu, catching her friend's tone; "but I'm very happy in feeling quite
sure he would rather have me, bad as I am, just because I am his own."

"That makes all the difference in the world," said Evelyn; "and perhaps,
on becoming acquainted with my faults, he might think them worse than
yours."

It was not quite school-time when they reached Ion, and Evelyn proposed
that they should spend the few intervening minutes in the grounds.

"I'd like to, ever so much," said Lulu; "but papa bade me go directly to
my own room on getting home. So good-by," and she moved on resolutely in
the direction of the house.

"Good-by. I'll see you again when school is out, if I can," Evelyn
called after her.

Lulu's thoughts were so full of other things, she found great difficulty
in fixing them upon her lessons. But saying to herself that it would be
much too bad to fail in her first recitations to her father, she exerted
her strong will to the utmost, and succeeded. She was quite ready for
him when, at length, he came in.

But looking up eagerly from her book, "Papa," she asked, "have you, oh!
have you, bought it?"

"Bought what?" he asked smilingly, as