“Dear, dear! how we will miss Max!” exclaimed Lulu, “but then how nice it will be when he comes home for his vacations!”
“So it will,” said the captain. “But now I have something else to tell you; something which concerns you, Lulu, a little more nearly.”
“I hope it isn’t that I am to go away too! you can’t make a cadet of me, though Aunt Beulah called me a tom-boy when I was with her,” Lulu remarked laughingly.
“No; but there are other places more suitable for girls,” her father replied, with a grave look and tone that she was at a loss to interpret.
“Oh, papa, you can’t mean that really I—I’m going away too?”
“Perhaps some better instructor than your present one might be found for you,” he began meditatively, then paused, as if considering the matter.
“Oh, no, no, no!” she cried, “there couldn’t be a better one, I’m sure, and I just love to be taught by you, and couldn’t bear to have anybody else teach me; ’specially if I had to go away from you. And wouldn’t you miss me a little, papa?” she asked, with tears in her voice and hiding her face on his shoulder.
“Yes; a great deal more than a little should I miss the darling daughter always so ready, even eager, to run papa’s errands and wait upon him lovingly,” he said, pressing his lips again and again to her cheek. “In fact, her companionship is so sweet to me that, having to go upon a long journey, I would prefer to take her with me.
“But I shall not force her inclination; if you would rather stay at home with Mamma Vi and the little ones, you may do so.”
“Oh, papa, what do you mean?” she asked, looking up in joyful surprise, not unmixed with perplexity. “Won’t you please explain?”