Then Violet came in with a bit of fancy work in her hand. Max brought out the book they had been enjoying together for several evenings past, and handed it to his father.
While the captain was turning over the leaves in search of the place where he had left off the night before, Lulu drew quietly near the table and took up a paper-cutter and a magazine that had come by that afternoon’s mail.
“Don’t trouble yourself to cut those leaves, Lulu,” her father said; “Max will do it for me.”
She dropped magazine and knife as though they had burned her, turned away with quivering lip and eyes full of tears, and presently stole away to her own room, went to bed and cried herself to sleep.
She knew it was not worth while to stay up for the usual good-night visit from papa, for of course he would never think of paying one to a little girl guest.
And in the morning when he came to the children’s sitting-room Grace had him to herself.
Lulu met him first at the table, when he greeted her with a pleasant “Good-morning, Lulu,” but offered no caress, and she did not ask for one, though she had never felt more hungry for it.
She went to the school-room at the appointed hour and applied herself industriously to her tasks, but he did not call her to recite; the others were heard and dismissed, but she sat unnoticed at her desk. Her father was at his, writing letters, and at length she rose and drew near him.
“May I say my lessons now, papa?”
“I do not teach visitors,” he said, in a tone of polite astonishment; “I instruct no one but my own children.”