d the rest of the family in the hall, taking leave of her father.

He was just stooping to give Enna a farewell kiss, as his little daughter
came up. He did not seem to notice her, but was turning away, when Enna
said, "Here is Elsie; aren't you going to kiss _her_ before you go?"

He turned round again, to see those soft, hazel eyes, with their
mournful, pleading gaze, fixed upon his face. He never forgot that
look; it haunted him all his life.

He stood for an instant looking down upon her, while that mute, appealing
glance still met his, and she ventured to take his hand in both of hers
and press it to her lips.

But he turned resolutely away, saying, in his calm, cold tone, "No! Elsie
is a stubborn, disobedient child. I have no caress for her."

A moan of heart-breaking anguish burst from Elsie's pale and trembling
lips; and covering her face with her hands, she sank down upon the
door-step, vainly struggling to suppress the bitter, choking sobs that
shook her whole frame.

But her father was already in the carriage, and hearing it begin to move,
she hastily dashed away her tears, and strained her eyes to catch the
last glimpse of it, as it whirled away down the avenue.

It was quite gone; and she rose up and sadly re-entered the house.

"I don't pity her at all," she heard her grandfather say, "for it is all
her own fault, and serves her just right."

But so utterly crushed and heart-broken was she already, that the cruel
words fell quite unheeded upon her ear.

She went directly to her father's deserted room, and shutting herself in,
tottered to the bed, and laying her face on the pillow where his head had
rested a few hours before, clasped her arms around it, and wetted it with
her tears, moaning sadly to herself the while, "Oh, _papa_, my own dear,
darling papa! I shall never, _never_ see you again! Oh, how can I live
without you? who is there to love me now? Oh, papa, papa, will you never,
never come back to me? Papa, papa, my heart is breaking! I shall die."

From that time the little Elsie drooped and pined, growing paler and
thinner day by day--her step more languid, and her eye more dim--till no
one could have recognized in her the bright, rosy, joyous child, full of
health and happiness, that she had been six months before. She went about
the house like a shadow, scarcely ever speaking or being spoken to. She
made no complaint, and seldom shed tears now; but seemed to have lost her
interest in e