“Do you mean, sir, that we are to repeat the answers in the book, word for word?”

“No, not at all.  I shall very much prefer to have you give the sense in your own words:  then I shall know that you understand the meaning of the text, and are not repeating sounds merely like a parrot; that you have not been going over the words without trying to take in the ideas they are meant to express.”

“But suppose we can’t catch the writer’s meaning?”

“If you fail to do so, after giving your best efforts to the task, your teacher will always be ready to explain to the best of his ability,” was the smiling rejoinder.  “But remember, all of you, that I intend you to use your own brains with as little assistance from other people’s as possible.  Mind as well as body grows strong by exercise.”

“But we haven’t decided when we are to begin,” said Lulu.

“I vote for to-morrow,” said Max:  “afternoons will give us time enough to do any thing else we want to.”

“Yes:  I second the motion,” she said.

“And I third it,” added Grace.  “Now, papa, you are laughing at me, and so is Max.  Wasn’t that the right way to say it?”

“It was ’most as right as Lu’s,” said Max.

“And both will do well enough,” said their father.

“I was going to ask if I might have Eva here to visit me to-morrow, papa,” said Lulu; “but she’ll be busy with lessons in the morning too.  May I ask her to come in the afternoon?”

“Yes:  you can ask her this evening; she will be here with the rest.

“Now I have something else to show you.  Come with me.”

He took Gracie’s hand again, and led them to a small, detached building, only a few yards distant,—­a one-story frame, so prettily designed that it was quite an ornament to the grounds.

The children exclaimed in surprise; for, though it had been there on their former visit to Woodburn, it was so greatly changed that they failed to recognize it.

“It wasn’t here before, papa, was it?” asked Grace.  “I’m sure I didn’t see it.”

“Yes, it was here,” he said, as he ushered them in, “but I have had it altered and fitted up expressly for my children’s use:  you see, it is a little away from the house, so that the noise of saws and hammers will not be likely to prove an annoyance to your mamma and visitors.  See, this is a workroom furnished with fret and scroll saws, and every sort of tool that I know of which would be likely to prove useful to you, Max and Lulu.”

“Papa, thank you! how good and kind you are to us!” they both exclaimed, glancing about them, then up into his face, with sparkling eyes.

“You must have spent a great deal of money on us, sir,” added Max thoughtfully.

“Yes, indeed,” chimed in Lulu with a slight look of uneasiness.  “Papa, I do hope you won’t have to go without any thing you want, because you’ve used up so much on these and other things for us.”