Christmas with Grandma Elsie Part 36

"Papa, won't you sit down and take me on your knee, and hug me up close, while you tell it?" entreated Grace.

"I will," he said, doing as she requested. Then catching a longing look in Lulu's eyes, "You may come too, daughter," he said. "Slip on your dressing-gown and stand here by my side. I have an arm for you as well as one for Gracie."

Lulu promptly and joyfully availed herself of the permission.

"Lu," said Max, "you're a real heroine! brave as a lion! I'm proud to own you for my sister. I'm afraid I mightn't have been half so brave."

"Oh yes, Max, I'm sure you would have done just the same," she returned, blus.h.i.+ng with pleasure. "And you see I preferred to do it, because I thought they might kill papa, and that would have been oh so much worse than being killed myself!" clinging lovingly to her father, and hiding her face on his shoulder as she spoke.

"Dear child!" he said in moved tones and clasping her close, "you have a very strong and unselfish love for me."

"Papa, it would have broken my heart, and Mamma Vi's, and Max's and Gracie's too, if anything dreadful had happened to you."

"And what about papa's heart if he should lose his dear little daughter Lulu, or anything dreadful should happen to her?"

"I didn't have time to think about that, papa. I know you love me very much, and would be sorry to lose me--naughty as I often am--but you have other children, and I have only one father; so of course it would be a great deal worse for me to lose you, and all the rest to lose you too."

"The worst thing that could befall us," said Violet; "but Lulu, dear, we all love you and would feel it a terrible thing to have you killed or badly injured in any way."

"Indeed we would!" exclaimed Max, with a slight tremble in his voice.

"Oh I couldn't ever, ever bear it!" sobbed Gracie, throwing an arm round her sister's neck.

"Well," said the captain cheerfully, hugging both at once, "we have escaped all the evils we have been talking of; our heavenly Father has taken care of us and has not suffered us to even lose our worldly goods, much less our lives; and we may well trust Him for the future and not fear what man can do unto us."

"Yes," said Violet, "we know that He has all power in heaven and earth and will never suffer any real evil to befall one of His people.

"'He will not suffer thy foot to be moved; he, that keepth thee will not slumber.'

"Levis, did you know those men?"

"One of them is Ajax."

"Is it possible?" she exclaimed. "What a return for all the kindness you have shown to him and his!"

"Ajax! There, I was sure I heard Ajax's voice in the hall while the sheriff was here," cried Lulu. "He must have been the one who was down on his knees trying to break the safe lock when I peeped in at the crack. I didn't see his face; but the other was a white man."

"Yes," said Max; "a man we'd seen before."

"The tramp you saw when out riding?" asked his father.

"Yes, sir."

"I recognized him too," said Lulu. "Papa, what will be done with him and Ajax?"

"They will have to be tried for burglary and if convicted, will be sent to the penitentiary for a term of years."

"Papa, will we have to appear as witnesses on the trial?" asked Max.

"Yes."

"The men did not attempt any resistance to the arrest?" Violet said inquiringly.

"No; they saw it would be quite useless."

After a little more talk the captain said, "Now I think it will be best for us all to go to our beds again and try to sleep till the usual hour for rising."

"Papa, I feel so afraid," said Grace, holding tight to him as he would have laid her in the bed.

"My darling, try not to feel so," he said, caressing her; "try to believe that G.o.d will take care of you."

"Please ask him again, papa," she pleaded.

Then they all knelt while the captain asked in a few simple, earnest words that He who neither slumbers nor sleeps would be their s.h.i.+eld, defending them from all evil, and that trusting in His protecting care they might be able to banish every fear and lay them down in peace and sleep.

"I am not afraid now, papa," Grace said, as they rose from their knees.

"You may please put me in my bed, and I think I'll go to sleep directly, for I'm very tired."

"You will allow them to sleep past the usual hour, my dear, will you not?" asked Violet.

"Yes," he said, "I wish you, children, to sleep on as long as you can, and if possible make up all you have lost by the visit of the burglars; it will not matter if you take your breakfast later than usual by even so much as an hour or two."

"But that will make us late for lessons, papa," suggested Max.

"Which I will excuse for once," returned his father with an indulgent smile.

CHAPTER XVI.

Day had fully dawned before the Woodburn household was astir, and it was long past his accustomed hour when the captain paid his usual morning visit to his little daughters.

He found them up and dressed and ready with a glad greeting.

"Were you able to sleep, my darlings?" he asked, caressing them in turn.

"Oh yes, indeed, papa, we slept nicely," they answered.

"And feel refreshed and well this morning?"

"Yes, papa; thank you very much for letting us sleep so long."

"I allowed myself the same privilege," he said pleasantly. "We will have no school to-day, I have already been notified that there will be a preliminary examination of the prisoners, before the magistrate this morning, and that you, Lulu, and Max and I must attend as witnesses."

"I'd rather not go, papa; please don't make me," pleaded Lulu.

"My child, it is not I, but the law that insists," he said; "but you need not feel disturbed over the matter; you have only to tell a straightforward story of what you heard and saw and did in connection with the attempted robbery.