Edward read aloud his mother’s announcement of the fact.  “Yes,” said Zoe.  “Betty tells me the same thing.  O Ned! how sorry I am for poor Vi!  It would be hard enough for her if she had the captain with her, to help bear the burden and responsibility, and to share in her grief if they should die.”

“Yes, it is hard for her; and I am glad she has mamma and grandpa and grandma with her.  Mamma says Dick Percival is attending the children, and there is talk of telegraphing for Arthur.

“Ah,” glancing from the window, “here he comes!  He will perhaps bring us later news.”

Arthur did so:  the children were worse than at the date of the letters.  He had just received his summons, and would obey it immediately, taking the next train; had called to tell them, and see how Edward was.

“Almost entirely recovered, tell my mother,” Edward said, in reply to the query; “and you needn’t go feeling any anxiety in regard to this one of your patients,” he added playfully.

“I leave him in your care, Zoe,” said Arthur; “and, if he does not do well, I shall hold you responsible.”

“Then you must lay your commands upon him to obey my orders,” she said, with a merry glance from one to the other.

“Would that be any thing new in his experience?” asked the doctor with mock gravity.

“It won’t do to question us too closely,” returned Zoe, coloring and laughing.

“She is a very good little wife, and tolerably obedient,” laughed Edward.  “Really, would you believe it? she told me once she actually enjoyed obeying—­under certain circumstances; and so, I suppose, should I. Zoe, you mustn’t be too hard on me.”

“Oh!  I intend to be very strict in seeing the doctor’s orders carried out,” she said; “and I expect to enjoy my brief authority immensely.”

Dr. Conly took leave almost immediately, for he had no time to spare; and the reading of the letters was resumed.

Betty’s was a long one, giving a full account, from her point of view, of the contest between Mr. Dinsmore and Lulu Raymond in regard to her refusal to take music-lessons of Signor Foresti after he had struck her.  None of the family had mentioned the affair in their letters, even Rosie feeling that she had no warrant to do so; and the story was both new and interesting to Zoe.

Lulu had not yet submitted when Betty wrote, so the story as told in her letter left the little girl still in banishment at Oakdale Academy.

Zoe read the letter aloud to Edward.

“Lulu is certainly the most ungovernable child I have ever seen or heard of,” he remarked, at its conclusion.  “I often wonder at the patience and forbearance grandpa and mamma have shown toward her.  In their place, I should have had her banished to a boarding-school long ago, one at a distance, too, so that she could not trouble me, even during holidays.”

“So should I,” said Zoe:  “she hasn’t the least shadow of a claim upon them.”