Poor Grace, worn out with her unusual excitement, and especially the
grief of the parting with Max, was asleep the instant her head touched
the pillow. Not so with Lulu; her loneliness and depression banished
sleep from her eyes for the time, and presently she slipped from her
berth, threw on a warm dressing-gown, and thrust her feet into felt
slippers. The next moment she stole noiselessly into the saloon where
her father sat alone looking over an evening paper.
He was not aware of her entrance till she stood close at his side, her
hand on his shoulder, her eyes fixed, with a gaze of ardent affection,
upon his face.
"Dear child!" he said, looking up from his paper, and smiling
affectionately upon her; then tossing the paper aside and putting an arm
about her waist, he drew her to his knee and pressed fatherly kisses
upon lip and cheek and brow, asking tenderly if anything was wrong with
her that she had come in search of him when he supposed her to be
already in bed and sound asleep.
"I'm not sick, papa," she said in reply; "but oh, I miss Maxie so!" The
words were almost a sob, and she clung about her father's neck, hiding
her face on his shoulder.
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