ulge her in everything, found that
it would never do to let these children grow up together. They would
either love each other as they got older, and pair like wild creatures,
or take some fierce antipathy, which might end nobody could tell where.
It was not safe to try. The boy must be sent away. A sharper quarrel
than common decided this point. Master Dick forgot Old Sophy's caution,
and vexed the girl into a paroxysm of wrath, in which she sprang at him
and bit his arm. Perhaps they made too much of it; for they sent for the
old Doctor, who came at once when he heard what had happened. He had a
good deal to say about the danger there was from the teeth of animals
or human beings when enraged; and as he emphasized his remarks by the
application of a pencil of lunar caustic to each of the marks left by
the sharp white teeth, they were like to be remembered by at least one
of his hearers.

So Master Dick went off on his travels, which led him into strange
places and stranger company. Elsie was half pleased and half sorry to
have him go; the children had a kind of mingled liking and hate for each
other, just such as is very common among relations. Whether the girl had
most satisfaction in the plays they shared, or in teasing him, or taking
her small revenge upon him for teasing her, it would have been hard to
say. At any rate, she was lonely without him. She had more fondness for
the old black woman than anybody; but Sophy could not follow her far
beyond her own old rocking-chair. As for her father, she had made him
afraid of her, not for his sake, but for her own. Sometimes she would
seem to be fond of him, and the parent's heart would yearn within him as
she twined her supple arms about him; and then some look she gave him,
some half-articulated expression, would turn his cheek pale and almost
make him shiver, and he would say kindly, "Now go, Elsie, dear," and
smile upon her as she went, and close and lock the door softly after
her. Then his forehead would knot and furrow itself, and the drops of
anguish stand thick upon it. He would go to the western window of
his study and look at the solitary mound with the marble slab for its
head-stone. After his grief had had its way, he would kneel down and
pray for his child as one who has no hope save in that special grace
which can bring the most rebellious spirit into sweet subjection. All
this might seem like weakness in a parent having the charge of one
sole daughter of h