When she had gone as far in the narrative as her safe arrival among the alarmed household, he asked whether her Grandma Elsie inflicted any punishment upon her.
"No, sir," answered Lulu, hanging her head and speaking in a sullen tone. "I told her I didn't feel as if anybody had any right to punish me but you."
"Lulu I did you dare to talk in that way to her?" exclaimed the captain. "I hope she punished you for your impertinence; for if she did not I certainly must."
"She lectured me then, and this morning told me my punishment was a prohibition against wandering away from the rest more than just a few yards.
"But, papa, they were all so unkind to me at breakfast—I mean all but Grandma Elsie and Mamma Vi and Gracie. Betty looked sneering, and the others so cold and distant, and Rosie said something very insulting about my being a bad, troublesome child and frightening Mamma Vi into a headache."
"Certainly no more than you deserved," her father said. "Did you bear it with patience and humility, as you ought?"
"Do you mean that I must answer you, papa?"
"Most assuredly I do; tell me at once exactly what you did and said."
"I don't want to, papa," she said, half angrily.
"You are never to say that when I give you an order," he returned, in a tone of severity; "never venture to do it again. Tell me, word for word, as nearly as you can remember it, what reply you made to Rosie's taunt."