"Now you may go back to your play," he said, gently putting her off his knee. "I must go to your mamma and our poor, suffering baby."
He went; but the children lingered a while where they were, talking over this wonderfully good news.
"Now," said Max, "if Lu had only controlled her temper yesterday, what a happy family we'd be!"
"Yes," sighed Grace; "how I do wish she had! Oh, I'm so sorry for her, that she doesn't know this about papa going to stay with us all the time! 'Sides, she's 'specting to be sent away somewhere; and how dreadfully she must feel! Papa's punishing her very hard, and very long; but of course he knows best, and he loves her."
"Yes, I'm sure he does," assented Max: "so he won't give her any more punishment than he thinks she needs. It'll be a fine thing for her, and all the rest of us too, if this hard lesson teaches her never to get into a passion again."
Capt. Raymond had intended going to Lulu early in the day; but anxiety about the babe, and sympathy with Violet, kept him with them till late in the afternoon.
When at last he did go to his prisoner, he found her feverish with anxiety and fear for the consequences of her mad act of the day before.
She had been longing for his coming, moving restlessly about the room, feeling that she could not endure the suspense another moment; had at length thrown herself into a chair beside the window, and, as was her wont in times of over-wrought feeling, buried her face on her folded arms, laid on the window-sill.
She started up wildly at the sound of his step and the opening of the door.
"Papa," she cried breathlessly, "O papa! what—what have you come to tell me? Is—is the baby"—