ngest. Her arm stole round her
father's neck.

"Dear papa, how nice of you to love her so; my precious darling. She is
yours, too, almost as much as Edward's and mine. And I am sure if we
should be taken away and you and she be left, you would be the the same
good father to her you have been to me."

"Much better, I hope. My dear daughter, I was far too hard with you at
times. But I know you have forgiven it all long ago."

"Papa, dear papa, please don't ever again talk of--of forgiveness from me;
I was your own, and I believe you always did what you thought was for my
good; and oh, what you have been, and are to me, no tongue can tell."

"Or you to me, my own beloved child," he answered with emotion.

The babe stirred, and opened its eyes with a little, "Coo, coo."

"Let me take her," said Mr. Dinsmore, turning back the cover and gently
lifting her from her cozy nest.

Elsie lay back among her cushions again, watching with delighted eyes as
her father held and handled the wee body as deftly as the most competent
child's nurse.

It was a very beautiful babe; the complexion soft, smooth, and very fair,
with a faint pink tinge; the little, finely formed head covered with rings
of golden hair that would some day change to the darker shade of her
mother's, whose regular features and large, soft brown eyes she inherited
also.

"Sweet little flower blossomed into this world of sin and sorrow! Elsie,
dearest, remember that she is not absolutely yours, her father's, or mine;
but only lent you a little while to be trained up for the Lord."

"Yes, papa, I know," she answered with emotion, "and I gave her to Him
even before her birth."

"I hope she will prove as like you in temper and disposition as she bids
fair to be in looks."

"Papa, I should like her to be much better than I was."

He shook his head with a half-incredulous smile. "That could hardly be, if
she has any human nature at all."

"Ah, papa, you forget how often I used to be naughty and disobedient; how
often you had to punish me; particularly in that first year after you
returned from Europe."

A look of pain crossed his features. "Daughter, dear, I am full of remorse
when I think of that time. I fully deserved the epithet Travilla once
bestowed upon me in his righteous indignation at my cruelty to my gentle,
sensitive little girl."

"What was that, papa?" she asked, with a look of wonder and surprise.

"Dinsmore, you're a brute!"

"Papa, how