Max waited a moment, then began again, “Lu—”
“Oh, Max, do be quiet!” she exclaimed impatiently, without moving her eyes from the page.
Max gazed at her for another minute without speaking, an odd sort of smile in his eyes and playing about the corners of his mouth.
“Yes, I’ll do it,” he muttered under his breath; “now’s as good a time as any for the experiment.”
At that instant their father’s voice was heard in grave, slightly reproving accents, coming apparently from the hall. “Lulu!”
“Sir,” she answered promptly, dropping her book, while a vivid color suffused her cheek.
“Don’t read any longer; you will injure your eyes. Lay aside your book and come here to me.”
She obeyed at once, hurrying into the hall. Max looking after her with a gleam of mingled fun and triumph in his eyes.
“Why, papa, where are you?” he heard her ask the next moment; then she came rushing back with a face full of astonishment and perplexity. “Max, where can papa be? didn’t you hear him call me? I was sure he was in the hall, but he isn’t; and I can’t find him in any of the rooms. And oh, now I remember he drove away with Mamma Vi not half an hour ago, and they were going to the Oaks, and he couldn’t possibly be back by this time, even if they didn’t stop there long enough to get out of the carriage. Besides, we would have seen it drive up from the gate.”
“Couldn’t they have come back through the wood, as you and I do sometimes?”