She held out her hand as she spoke.
The captain grasped it warmly. "Thank you, mother, for those kind and hopeful words," he said with emotion. "For the last year or two, she has been alternately my joy and my despair; and I am resolved to leave no effort untried to rescue her from the dominion of her fierce temper.
"The task would doubtless have been far easier could I have undertaken it years ago, in her early infancy. But I trust it is not yet too late to accomplish it, with the help and the wisdom I may have in answer to prayer.
"No, I am sure it is by no means a hopeless undertaking, looking where you do for needed strength and wisdom; and I rejoice almost as much for Lulu's sake as for Vi's, that you have now come among us to stay. I will try to see her in the morning, and do what I can to make it easy for her to join the family circle again.
"And now good-night. I must not keep you longer from the wife who grudges every moment that you are absent from her side," she concluded, with a smile as sweet and beautiful as that of her girlhood's days.
While the captain and his mother-in-law held this little conversation in the upper hall, Zoe and Rosie were promenading the veranda, arm in arm. They had been talking of Violet and her baby, rejoicing together over its improved condition.
"How dreadful the last two days have been to poor Vi!" exclaimed Rosie, "even in spite of the home-coming of her husband, which has always before this made her so happy. In fact, it has been a dreadful time to all of us; and nobody to blame except that bad-tempered Lulu.
"At least, so I think," she added, conscience giving her a twinge; "though mamma says I ought to have let her have my pony, and taken my own ride later in the day, if I wanted one."
"It would have been more polite and unselfish, wouldn't it?" queried Zoe, in a teasing tone. "I dare say it is what mamma herself would have done under the same circumstances."
"I have no doubt of that," returned Rosie; "but mamma and I are two very different people. I can never hope to be as good and unselfish as she is, and always has been so far as I can learn."