ver.

She followed Adelaide to Mr. Dinsmore's door, and begged her with tears
and sobs to ask her papa to allow her to come to him, if it was only for
one moment, just to look at him, and then go away again.

Adelaide was touched by her evident anxiety and distress, and said,
almost kindly, as she laid her hand on the handle of the door, "Well,
Elsie, I will ask him; but I have no idea that it will be of any use,
unless you will give up your foolish obstinacy."

Elsie stood outside waiting with a beating heart, and though her aunt was
really gone but a moment, it seemed a long time to her ere the door again
opened.

She looked up eagerly, and read the answer in Adelaide's face, ere she
heard the coldly spoken, stern message--

"Your papa says you very well know the conditions on which you will be
admitted to his presence, and that they are as unalterable as the laws of
the Medes and Persians."

The tears gushed from Elsie's eyes, and she turned away with a gesture of
despair.

"Elsie," said her aunt, "let me advise you to give up at once; for I am
perfectly certain you never can conquer your father."

"Oh, Aunt Adelaide! that is not what I want," murmured the child, in low,
broken accents.

But Adelaide went on without noticing the interruption--

"He is worse, and growing worse all the time, Elsie; his fever has been
very high ever since yesterday afternoon--and we all know that it is
nothing but your misconduct that has caused this relapse."

Elsie could bear no more, but rushing away to her own room, and locking
herself in, she gave way without restraint to her feelings of distress
and anguish.

Knowing that she was not expected in the school-room--as she had paid no
attention to study since the beginning of her father's illness--she did
not leave her room again until dinner-time.

She was on her way to the dining-room, when her Aunt Adelaide, passing
her in the hall, caught hold of her, saying, "Elsie, your papa is so ill
that the doctor trembles for his life; he says he is certain that he has
something on his mind that is distressing him and causing this alarming
change, and unless it is removed he fears he will never be any better.
Elsie, _you know what that something is_."

Elsie stood as if turned to stone, while Adelaide, letting go her arm,
moved quickly away, leaving her alone, stunned, bewildered, terrified by
the suddenness of the dreadful announcement.

She could not think or reason; she