A nap and a nice supper had refreshed Lulu a good deal; but she felt weak and languid, and was lying on the bed again when her father returned to her room.

She looked up at him wistfully as he came and stood beside her, then her eyes filled with tears.

“What is it?” he asked, lifting her from the bed, seating himself, and drawing her into his arms:  “what is your petition? for I read in your eyes that you have one to make.”

“Papa, you won’t send me away—­very—­soon, will you?” she pleaded in tremulous tones, her arm round his neck, her face hidden on his shoulder.

“Not till I go myself; then I shall take you with me.”

“To a boarding-school?” she faltered.

“No:  I’m going to put you in a private family.”

Her face was still hidden, and she did not see the smile in his eyes.

“What kind of people are they, papa?” she asked with a deep-drawn sigh.

“Very nice people, I think:  the wife and mother is a very lovely woman, and the four children—­a boy and three girls—­are, I presume, neither better nor worse than my own four.  The gentleman, who will teach you himself, along with the others, and have the particular care and oversight of you, is perhaps rather stern and severe with any one who ventures to disobey his orders; but I am quite certain, that, if you are good and obedient, he will be very kind and indulgent, possibly a trifle more indulgent than he ought to be.”

Lulu began to cry again.  “I don’t like men-teachers!” she sobbed.  “I don’t like a man to have any thing to do with me.  Please, please don’t send me there, papa!”

“You want me to relent, and let you stay on here if they will have you?”

“No, no, papa!  I don’t want to stay here!  I don’t want to see anybody here again, except Max and Gracie; because I’m so ashamed of—­of what I’ve done.  I couldn’t look any of them in the face, for I know they must despise me.”

“I am sure you are mistaken in that, my child,” he said gravely.  “But what is it you do desire?”

“To be with you, papa.  Oh, if I could only go with you!”

“And leave Max and Gracie?”

“I’ll have to leave them, anyhow, if you take me away from here; and, though I love them very much, I love you a great deal better.”

“I’m afraid you would have a doleful time on shipboard, with no young companions, nobody to see or speak to but your father and the other officers.”

“I wouldn’t care for that, or any thing, if I could only be with you.  Papa, you don’t know how I love you!”

“Then, I’ll take you with me when I leave here; and you need never live away from me any more, unless you choose.”

“Papa,” she cried, lifting her head to look up into his face, with glad, astonished eyes, “do you really mean it? May I go with you?”

He held her close, with a joyous laugh.

“Why, I understood you to say, a moment since, that you didn’t want to be in the care of a man,—­any man.”