ver looking at or speaking to
her.

He had privately given instructions beforehand to one of the servants to
attend to Miss Lulu's wants at the table, seeing that her plate was
supplied with whatever viands she desired; and it was done so quietly
that no one noticed anything unusual in the conduct of the meal.

Still Lulu was uncomfortably conscious of being in disgrace, and seized
the first opportunity to slip quietly away to her own room.

She took up the story-book--still unfinished--which had got her into this
trouble, but could not feel the interest she had before; an uneasy
conscience prevented.

Laying it aside, she sat for some moments with her elbow on the
window-sill, her cheek in her hand, her eyes gazing upon vacancy. She was
thinking of what Max had said about the duty of confession to her father.

"I wish I didn't have to," she sighed to herself; "I wish papa hadn't
said I must write out every day what I've been doing and send the diary
to him. I think it's hard; it's bad enough to have to confess my
wrong-doing to him when he's at home. It's just as well he isn't, though,
for I know he'd punish me if he was. Maybe he will when he comes again,
but it's likely to be such a long while first that I think I'm pretty
safe as far as that is concerned. Oh, it does provoke me so that he will
make me obey these people! I'm determined I'll do exactly as I please
when I'm grown up!

"But if I'm sent off to boarding-school I'll have to obey the teachers
there, or have a fight and be expelled--which would be a great disgrace
and 'most break papa's heart, I do believe--and they would very likely be
more disagreeable than even Grandpa Dinsmore; not half so nice and kind
as Grandma Elsie, I'm perfectly certain. Oh dear, if I only _were_ grown
up! But I'm not, and I have to write the story of to-day to papa. I'll
make it short."

Opening her writing-desk, she took therefrom pen, ink, and paper, and,
after a moment's cogitation, began.

"I haven't been a good girl to-day," she wrote; "I was so interested in a
story-book that I neglected to learn my Latin lesson; so I failed in the
recitation, and Grandpa Dinsmore was very cross and disagreeable about
it. He says I answered him disrespectfully and as punishment I sha'n't go
into the schoolroom or recite to him again for a week.

"There," glancing over what she had written, "I hope papa will never
question me closely about it; and I think he won't; it'll be such an