“I’m sure we will; I’m happy anywhere with you, my dear, dear papa,” said Grace, putting an arm round his neck and pressing her lips to his cheek.

“So am I,” said Lulu, “unless I have been doing wrong, and papa is displeased with me.  Oh, I do mean to try my very hardest to be good! and I’m sure it will be ever so much easier with you for my tutor, dear papa, than it was before, going to that horrid school and having to take music lessons from that Signor Foresti, who was so ill-tempered and struck me, when I was trying as hard as I could to play my piece just right.”

“Yes, daughter, I think it will be easier for you with the tutor who loves you and is loved by you,” assented the captain, drawing her into a close, loving embrace.  “We must see if a music teacher is to be had here, but certainly will not try Signor Foresti again.”

“Oh, I am glad to hear you say that, papa! though I never thought you would send me back to him again.  I am, oh, so glad I belong to you instead of to—­anybody else.”

“So am I,” he responded, with a happy little laugh.

“And that I do too, papa?” asked Grace, in a half-pleading tone.

“Yes, yes, my own darling,” he said, addressing her with great tenderness.  “You are no less dear than your sister.”

“How good in you, papa! for I’m not half so bright or pretty as Lu,” she said, patting his cheek with her small white hand.

“Why, Gracie!” exclaimed Lulu, “whatever put such a thing as that into your head?  You are far prettier, and better too, than I am.  Isn’t she, papa?”

“You must not ask me such hard questions,” he returned laughingly, and hugging them both up in his arms, “I really could not say that either one is prettier or dearer to me than the other, or that I love either more or less than I do each of the other three.  The love differs somewhat in kind, but, I think, not in intensity.”

“Yes, papa, I suppose so,” returned Lulu thoughtfully; “for instance you must have quite a different sort of love for Max, who is almost old enough to take care of himself, and baby Ned who is so very young and helpless.”

Violet joined them at that moment, reported the babies as fast asleep in the nursery, and consulted her husband as to what rooms they should occupy during their stay; saying her mother had kindly bade them please themselves in regard to that matter.

“Choose for yourself, my dear,” replied the captain, “and I shall be entirely satisfied; only I should like to have these children close at hand—­a door of communication between their room, or rooms, and ours, if that can be easily managed.  We must be near the babies of course.”

“Yes, indeed!  Near every one of our four,” returned Violet brightly; “I could not be easy otherwise, any more than their father.

“But suppose I take you over the house, if you are not too tired.  To-morrow, you remember, is Sunday, and I could hardly wait till Monday, to say nothing of the curiosity that must of course be consuming you.”