“O Eva,” she cried, “I do think we are going to have the most splendid time that ever was! You are to share my rooms, and we’ll go right up there, if you like.”
“I do like; or shall as soon as I have spoken to your father and your Mamma Vi,” returned Evelyn gayly, putting her small hand into the large one the captain held out to her.
“I am very glad to see you, my dear,” he said in a fatherly manner that made the quick tears spring to her eyes.
A sudden sense of her irreparable loss almost overwhelmed her for the moment, and she could not utter a word of reply.
He saw her emotion, drew her nearer, and bending down, kissed her as tenderly as if she had been his own.
“Lulu’s father may have the privilege may he not, daughter?” he asked in affectionate accents.
A grateful look was her only answer.
But now other carriages were driving up, and guests, old and young, pouring in so fast that there was a delightful confusion of affectionate embraces and merry greetings.
Lulu was in her element, playing hostess to her young girl-friends, showing them to their rooms and seeing that every thing necessary for their comfort was provided; while Max did likewise by the boys, with perhaps an equal sense of enjoyment, and Grace entertained her little mates in her own quiet fashion in the lower rooms of the mansion.
Rosie Travilla, coming down a little in advance of the others, met the captain in the lower hall.