The Roselands people were urged to stay to tea, but declined, and presently took their leave. But they had scarcely gone, when Violet's brothers Harold and Herbert came, and they stayed to tea. They were bright and genial as usual; Chester, too, was gay and lively; and so altogether they constituted a blithe and merry party.
The evening brought the families from Ashlands, Pinegrove, and The Laurels, and the next day those from Fairview, Beechwood, and Riverside. Rosie expressed herself as charmed with her new home, and insisted upon having them all there to tea with her mother and old Mr. and Mrs. Dinsmore. The other relatives she had already entertained, she said; and she was planning to have all at once at no very distant day.
"Surely we can wait for that, Rosie," said the captain, "and content ourselves with a call upon you and a sight of your pretty home, leaving the greater visit to the time you speak of."
"No, Brother Levis, I won't be satisfied with that," she said. "I want you all to take tea with us to-morrow evening."
"Are you not willing that we should, father?" asked Lucilla.
"Yes, if you wish to do so," he replied; and as all expressed themselves desirous to accept the invitation, they did so; and they were so well and hospitably entertained that everyone was delighted. They returned home rather early in the evening, on account of the little ones. Violet took them upstairs at once, and Grace went to her room, so that Lucilla and her father were left alone together, as so often happened early in the evening. She followed him into the library, asking, "Haven't you some letters to be answered, father? and shall I not write them for you on the typewriter?"
"I fear you are too tired, daughter, and had better be getting ready for bed," he answered, giving her a searching but affectionate look.
"Oh, no, sir," she said; "I am neither tired nor sleepy; and if I can be of any use to my dear, kind father, nothing would please me better."
He smiled at that, lifted the cover from the machine, and they worked busily together for the next half-hour or more. When they had finished, "Thank you, daughter," he said; "you are such a help and comfort to me that I hardly know what I should ever do without you."
"Oh, you are so kind to say that, you dear father," she returned, her eyes shining with joy and filial love. "I often say to myself, 'How could I ever live without my dear father?' and then I ask God to let you live as long as I do. And I hope he will."