No one else spoke. Lulu resumed her seat and ate her breakfast, but with little appetite or enjoyment; and on leaving the table tried to avoid contact with any of those who had caused her offence.
"May I go down to the beach, Grandma Elsie?" she asked, in low, constrained tones, and with her eyes upon the floor.
"If you will go directly there, to the seats under the awning which we usually occupy, and not wander from them farther than they are from the cliff," Elsie answered. "Promise me that you will keep within those bounds, and I shall know I may trust you; for you are an honest child."
The cloud lifted slightly from Lulu's brow at those kindly words. She gave the promise, and walked slowly away.
As she descended the stairway that led down the face of the cliff, she saw that Edward and Zoe were sitting side by side on one of the benches under the awning.
She did not fancy their company just now, and knew hers would not be acceptable to them. She thought she would pass them and seat herself in the sand a little farther on.
Edward was speaking as she came up behind them, and she heard him say, "It was the most uncomfortable meal ever eaten in our family; and all because of that ungovernable child."
Lulu flushed hotly, and stepping past turned and confronted him with flashing eyes.
"I heard you, Uncle Edward," she said, "though I had no intention of listening; and I say it is very unjust to blame me so when it was Rosie's insulting tongue and other people's cold, contemptuous looks that almost drove me wild."
"You are much too easily driven wild," he said. "It is high time you learned to have some control over your temper. If I were your father I'd teach it you, even if I must try the virtue of a rod again and again; also you should learn proper submission to authority, if it had to be taught in the same manner."