"Of course papa hadn't heard about the school. I wonder what he would think of our being sent to it," remarked Lulu.
"I have no doubt he would approve of anything done for you by my mother and grandfather," Violet answered gently.
"When do we begin there?" asked Max.
"Next Monday. But you are to be taken over this afternoon for a preliminary examination, so that you may be assigned your places and lessons, and be all ready to set to work with the others on Monday morning."
"Will you go with us, Mamma Vi?" asked Lulu.
"No, dear; but mamma and grandpa will."
"I must go and tell Eva, so she will be ready," exclaimed Lulu, starting up and hurrying from the room.
Evelyn had wandered to a distant part of the grounds and seated herself upon a little grassy mound that encircled the roots of a great oak-tree.
With the sight of Lulu's joy at receiving a letter from her absent father a fresh sense of her own heavy bereavement had come over her, and her heart seemed breaking with its load of bitter sorrow; its intense longing for
"the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still!"