"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."