"Oh! thank you, papa," she returned joyously, slipping her hand into his. "I'll be as quiet as a mouse."
"I hope my turn will come to-morrow," remarked Max. "I've a hundred questions I want to ask."
"As many as you like, my boy, when I have time to listen; though I don't promise to answer them all to your entire satisfaction," his father replied, as he passed on into the nursery, taking Grace with him.
Max went down-stairs, where he found Evelyn Leland sitting alone in one of the parlors, waiting till her aunt Elsie should be ready to go back to Fairview.
"Max," she said, as he came in, and took a seat at her side, "you have just the nicest kind of a father!"
"Yes, that's so!" he returned heartily: "there couldn't be a better one."
"I wish he would let me see Lu," Evelyn went on: "I was in hopes he would after the doctor had told him the baby was sure to get well."
"I think he would, but that Lu has cried herself sick, and he wants her to sleep off her headache. He refused to let Gracie and me in for that reason."
"Poor thing!" Evelyn exclaimed, tears springing to her eyes. "I should think it must have been almost enough to set her crazy. But how happy she will be when she hears that your father isn't going away again, and means to keep her at home with him."
"Yes, indeed; she'll go wild with joy; it's what all three of us have wanted to have happen more than any thing else we could think of.