“More than two questions at once this time,” laughed her father. “I will try to answer them in turn. She is likely to stay with us for the present at least. Her mother and all the younger children, except Sandy, are dead; the little ones dying of diphtheria, the mother of grief and the fatigue from nursing them through their illness. Sandy is working his way with a farmer for the present; the father attempted to force Marian into a match with a Mormon thirty or forty years older than herself, and she, by running away, barely escaped a fate that she esteemed far worse than death.”
“Oh, poor thing!” cried Lulu. “How glad I am that I have a father who would never force me to leave him for anybody else,” clinging still closer to him as she spoke.
“Never, no, never, my own precious child!” he returned with emotion. “But you are still far too young even to be thinking of such a thing.”
“Yes, I know that, papa, and I’m glad of it. I like to be a little girl that nobody wants to get away from her father.”
“Then we are both satisfied.”
“Papa, is Marian going to live here with us?” she asked.
“Nothing is decided yet,” he replied, “but it will depend upon circumstances. Would you wish it, daughter?”
She hesitated a little, then said: “If you and Mamma Vi want her here, papa, I would not like to stand in the way of her having such a sweet home, but—it’s so delightful to have our dear home to ourselves; just you and Mamma Vi and us children.”
“So your mamma and I think,” he returned with a gratified look; “and very possibly Marian herself would prefer some other plan, for I perceive she is of a very independent disposition. I have learned that it is her desire and purpose to earn her own living, and I think the kindest thing I can do will be to help her fit herself for whatever work she may think best suited to her talents and inclination.”