“Yes,” replied her father, “change is pleasant and beneficial to almost every one; and no doubt we shall enjoy our own home all the more for having been absent from it for a time.”
The carriage drew up at the door, and they all alighted, to receive a joyous welcome from Christine and the servants gathered about it.
A delicious supper was waiting, and was presently served up. Ample justice was done it by the hungry travellers, especially the children. Then, as there was still a good half-hour of daylight, they roamed over house and grounds, delighted to renew their acquaintance with all their old familiar haunts, and greatly pleased to find every thing in perfect order.
The weather was charming, both on that day and for several subsequent days, and the captain and Violet thought it well to take advantage of it for paying and receiving visits among the family connection, before settling down to the regular routine of home duties and occupations. The days were pretty well-filled up with walks, rides, drives, and social gatherings.
After that, while Violet busied herself with the oversight of dressmakers and seamstresses, the captain resumed his duties as owner of the estate, employer of household servants and out-of-door workmen, and tutor to his children; the latter being required to at once begin again their long-neglected studies.
Confinement to the house for several hours on the stretch, and steady application to their books, were at first irksome; but papa was lenient, and his pupils were sincerely desirous to merit his approbation. There were no reprimands or complaints; study hours were made short, and the afternoon walks and rides on the ponies found all the more enjoyable for the industry that had preceded them.
But the second week of November brought with it a long, cold rain-storm that put an end, for the time, to all out-door diversions.
Both Max and Lulu had always been very fond of exercise in the open air, and now found it extremely wearisome to be shut up in the house day after day. Lulu’s trial of the confinement and sameness was rather more continuous than her brother’s, as he could occasionally venture out in weather which their father considered quite too inclement to be braved by a little girl.
She had been remarkably good, docile and obedient for months; ever since that time when she had had to do without Fairy for a week. She began to look upon herself as quite a reformed character; but her father, though greatly pleased and encouraged by the improvement in her behavior, felt quite certain that there would be times when the old tempers and habits would resume their sway for a season.
One morning when the sun had scarcely shown his face for a week, Lulu woke feeling dull and irritable; all the more out of humor on discovering that she had overslept herself, and would have scarcely time to attend properly to the duties of the toilet before the breakfast-bell would ring.