“I’m not sorry, sir,” said Max, “though I’ve enjoyed my vacation very much.”
“I’m not really sorry,” said Lulu, “but I’m afraid I’ll find it hard at first to sit still and study. Please, papa, won’t you be a little easy with us for a day or two?”
“I hope you will find me not unreasonably strict or stern,” he replied, smiling slightly; “but I can’t allow too much self-indulgence, too ready a yielding to an indolent disinclination for work.”
“But please, papa, make their lessons short and easy for the first day or two,” said Violet, in a playful tone of entreaty; “that is the way mamma used to do with us after a holiday: getting us back into the traces gradually, you know.”
“A very good plan I think,” responded the captain; “and very kind in Mamma Vi to plead for the children.”
“Yes, so it is; but we don’t need any body to plead for us with our own dear, kind father,” said Lulu, laying an arm across his shoulders, as she stood by his side, and gazing into his face with eyes full of filial love and trust.
“Indeed, no!” exclaimed Violet. “I know he loves his children dearly and would not be hard with them for the world.”
“I trust not,” he said, smoothing Lulu’s hair caressingly, and returning her look of love. “I think there is nothing I desire more strongly than their welfare and happiness here and hereafter.”
“We are all sure of that, papa,” said Max. “Well, to-morrow is Sunday, when we have only our Bible and catechism lessons, and they are short and easy.”
“Yes; papa never gives long, hard lessons in those things,” assented Lulu.