ety. "Miss Adelaide," he suddenly exclaimed, "if she were ten years
older I should say she was dying of a broken heart, but she is so young
the idea is absurd."

"You are right, doctor! it is nothing but that. Oh! how I wish Horace
would come!" cried Adelaide, walking up and down the room, and wringing
her hands. "Do you notice, doctor," she asked, stopping before him, "how
she watches the opening of the door, and starts and trembles at every
sound? It is killing her, for she is too weak to bear it. Oh! If Horace
would only come, and set her mind at rest! He has been displeased with
her, and threatened to send her to a convent, of which she has a great
horror and dread--and she idolizes him; and so his anger and his threats
have had this sad effect upon her, poor child!"

"Write again, Miss Adelaide, and tell him that her _life_ depends upon
his speedy return and a reconciliation with him. If he would not lose
her he must at _once_ relieve her of every fear and anxiety," said the
physician, taking up his hat. "_That_ is the medicine she needs, and the
_only_ one that will do her much good. Good-morning. I will be in again
at noon."

And Adelaide, scarcely waiting to see him off, rushed away to her room to
write to her brother exactly what he had told her, beseeching him, if he
had any love for his child, to return immediately. The paper was all
blistered with her tears, for they fell so fast it was with difficulty
she could see to write.

"_She_ has spoken from the first as though it were a settled thing that
this sickness was to be her last; and now a great, a terrible dread is
coming over me that she is right. Oh, Horace, will you not come and
save her?"

Thus Adelaide closed her note; then sealing and despatching it, she
returned to the bedside of her little niece.

Elsie lay quietly with her eyes closed, but there was an expression of
pain upon her features. Mrs. Travilla sat beside her, holding one little
hand in hers, and gazing with tearful eyes upon the little wan face she
had learned to love so well.

Presently those beautiful eyes unclosed, and turned upon her with an
expression of anguish that touched her to the very heart.

"What is it, darling--are you in pain?" she asked, leaning over her, and
speaking in tones of the tenderest solicitude.

"Oh! Mrs. Travilla," moaned the little girl, "my sins--my sins--they are
so many--so black. 'Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.' God says
it; and I-