"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 could he say that!" and the fair face flushed with momentary
excitement and anger towards the father of her child, whom she so
thoroughly respected ind so dearly loved.
"Ah, don't be angry with him," said Mr. Dinsmore; "I was the culprit. You
cannot have forgotten your fall from the piano-stool which came so near
making me childless? It was he who ran in first, lifted you, and laid you
on the sofa with the blood streaming from the wounded temple over your
curls and your white dress. Ah, I can never forget the sad sight, or the
pang that shot through my heart with the thought that you were dead. It
was as he laid you down that Travilla turned to me with those indignant
words, and I felt that I fully deserved them. And yet I was even more
cruel afterwards, when next you refused to obey when I bade you offend
against your conscience."
"Don't let us think or talk of it any more, dear father; I love far better
to dwell upon the long years that followed, full of the tenderest care and
kindness. You certainly can find nothing to blame yourself with in them."
"Yes; I governed you too much. It would probably have ruined a less
amiable temper, a less loving heart, than yours. It is well for parents to
be sometimes a little blind to trivial faults. And I was so strict, so
stern, so arbitrary, so severe. My dear, be more lenient to your child.
But of course she will never find sternness in either you or her father."
"I think not, papa; unless she proves very head-strong; but you surely
cannot mean to advise us not to require the prompt, cheerful, implicit
obedience you have always exacted from all your children?"
"No, daughter; though you might sometimes excuse or pardon a little
forgetfulness when the order has not been of vital importance," he
answered, with a smile.
There was a moment's silence: then looking affectionately into her
father's face, Elsie said, "I am so glad, papa, that we have had this
talk. Edward and I have had several on the same subject (for we are very,
very anxious to train our little one aright); and I find that we all
agree. But you must be tired acting the part of nurse. Please lay her in
my arms."
"I am not tired, but I see you want her," he answered with a smile, doing
as she requested.
"Ah, you precious wee pet! you lovely, lovely little darling!" the young
mother said, clasping her child to her bosom, and softly kissing the
velvet cheek. "Papa, is she really beautiful? or is it only the mother
love that makes her so in my eyes?"
"No; she is really a remarkably beautiful babe. Strangers pronounce her so
as well as ourselves. Do you feel quite strong enough to hold her?"
"Oh, yes, sir; yes, indeed! The doctor says he thinks there would now be
no danger in my lifting her, but----" laughingly, and with a fond look up
into her husband's eyes, as at that moment he entered the room, "that old
tyrant is so fearful of an injury to this piece of his personal property,
that he won't let me."
"That old tyrant, eh?" he repeated, stooping to take a kiss from the sweet
lips, and to bestow one on the wee face resting on her bosom.
"Yes, you know you are," she answered, her eyes contradicting her words;
"the idea of you forbidding me to lift my own baby!"
"My baby, my little friend," he said gayly.
Elsie laughed a low, silvery, happy laugh, musical as a chime of bells.
"Our baby," she corrected. "But you have not spoken to papa."
"Ah, we said good-morning out in the avenue. Dinsmore, since we are all
three here together now, suppose we get Elsie's decision in regard to that
matter we were consulting about."
"Very well."
"What matter?" she asked, looking a little curious.
"A business affair," replied her husband, taking a seat by her side.
"I have a very good offer for your New Orleans property, daughter," said
Mr. Dinsmore; "shall I accept it?"
"Do you think it advisable, papa? and you, Edward? I have great confidence
in your judgments."
"We do; we think the money could be better and more safely invested in
foreign stock; but it is for you to decide, as the property is yours."
"More safely invested? I thought I had heard you both say real estate was
the safest of all investments."
"Usually," replied her father, "but we fear property there is likely to
depreciate in value."
"Well, papa, please do just as you and my husband think best. You both
know far more about these things than I do, and so I should rather trust
your judgment than my own."
"Then I shall make the sale; and I think the time will come when you will
be very glad that I did."
Mr. Dinsmore presently said good-bye and went away, leaving them alone.
"Are not your arms tired, little wife?" asked Mr. Travilla.
"No, dear; ah, it is so sweet to have her little head lying here; to feel
her little form, and know that she is my own, own precious treasure."
He rose, gently lifted her in his arms, put himself in the easy chair and
placed her on his knee.
"Now I have you both. Darling, do you know that I love you better to-day
than I ever did before?"
"Ah, but you have said that many times," she answered, with an arch, yet
tender smile.
"And it is always true. Each day I think my love as great as it can be,
but the next I find it still greater."
"And I have felt angry with you to-day, for the first time since you told
me of your love." Her tone was remorseful and pleading, as though she
would crave forgiveness.
"Angry with me, my dearest? In what can I have offended?" he asked in
sorrowful surprise.
"Papa was saying that he had sometimes been too hard with me, and had
fully deserved the epithet you once bestowed upon him in your righteous
indignation. It was when I fell from the piano-stool; do you remember?"
"Ah, yes, I can never forget it. And I called him a brute. But you will
forgive what occurred so long ago? and in a moment of anger aroused by my
great love for you?"
"Forgive you, my husband? ah, it is I who should crave forgiveness, and I
do, though it was a momentary feeling; and now I love you all the better
for the great loving heart that prompted the exclamation."
"We will exchange forgiveness," he whispered, folding her closer to his
heart.