he
sand, no one within several yards of her, her hands folded in her lap,
while she gazed far out to sea, her eyes following a sail in the distant
offing.

"Perhaps it is papa's ship," she was saying to herself. "Oh, how long
will it be before we see him again! And oh, how sorry he will be when he
hears about last night and this morning!"

At that instant she felt Grace's arms suddenly thrown round her, while
the sweet child voice exclaimed, in an ecstasy of delight, "Oh, Lu, he
_has_ come! he _has_, he _has_!"

"Who?" Lulu asked, with a start and tremble that reminded Grace of the
message she had to deliver, and that Lulu's pleasure at their father's
unexpected return could not be so unalloyed as her own; all which she
had forgotten for the moment in the rapture of delight she herself felt
at his coming.

"Papa, Lulu," she answered, sobering down, a good deal; "and I was 'most
forgetting that he sent me to tell you to come to him immediately."

"Did he?" Lulu asked, trembling more than before. "Does he know about
last night, Gracie? Did Mamma Vi tell him?"

"He knows 'bout it; somebody told him before he got to 'Sconset," said
Grace. "But mamma didn't tell him at all; he asked her, but she begged
him to please not ask her. Mamma doesn't ever tell tales on us, I'm
sure."

"No, I don't believe she does. But what did papa say then?"

"That you should tell him all about it yourself; you were an honest
child, serious as your faults were, and lie could trust you to own the
truth, even when you were to be punished for it. But, Lulu, you have to
go right up to the house; papa said 'immediately.'"

"Yes," Lulu replied, getting upon her feet very slowly, and looking a
good deal frightened; "did papa seem very angry?"

"I think he intends to punish you," Grace replied, in a sorrowful tone;
"but maybe he won't if you say you're sorry and won't do so any more.
But hurry, Lulu, or he may punish you for not obeying promptly."

"Is Mamma Vi there?" asked Lulu, still lingering.

"No; yonder she is; don't you see?" said Grace, nodding her head in the
direction of the awning under which nearly their whole party were now
seated: "there's nobody there but papa. Oh hurry, Lulu, or he will whip
you, I'm afraid."

"Don't you ever say that before anybody, Gracie," Lulu said, low and
tremulously; then turned and walked rapidly toward the stairway that led
up the bluff to the cottages.

At a window looking toward the bluff the