“He says I must be my own mistress all the rest of this week, because—because I was disobedient and rebellious yesterday.”
Grace looked puzzled. “Don’t you like it, Lu? I thought you always wished you could be.”
“I used to, but oh, it isn’t a bit nice, Gracie! I’m ever so much happier when papa tells me what to do.”
“Yes, I like that best.”
“And he won’t let me do a single thing for him,” Lulu went on, “and it’s dreadful; for I just love to wait on him and do all his little errands about the house.”
She did not attempt it again, however, until restored to a daughter’s place.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Lulu joined the rest of the family that evening and listened to the reading, but was careful not to take any liberties inconsistent with her position as only a guest. She asked for a goodnight kiss and received it, but that was all; there was no close, loving embrace given with it, as in former days, no words of tender fatherly affection were spoken.
The next day and the next passed very slowly to her, with no lessons to learn, no loving little services to render to her father, no delightfully confidential chats with him; while by reason of mental disquietude all employments had lost their usual interest for her; her heart was very heavy because she felt she was not in full favor with either her earthly or her heavenly Father.
For months past she had been happy in the consciousness that Jesus loved her; that he was her Saviour and she his disciple, his servant, belonging to him even more entirely than to the father whose “very own” she loved to call herself.