hall be
instantly despatched to bring de young lady down."

"No, thank you, Pomp," replied Mr. Travilla pleasantly, "we are not at
all in want of refreshments, and my mother would prefer seeing Miss Elsie
in her own room. I will step into the drawing-room, mother, until you
come down again," he added in an undertone to her.

Pomp was about to lead the way, but Mrs. Travilla gently put him aside,
saying that she would prefer to go alone, and had no need of a guide.

She found the door of Elsie's room standing wide to admit the air--for
the weather was now growing very warm indeed--and looking in, she
perceived the little girl half reclining upon a sofa, her head resting on
the arm, her hands clasped in her lap, and her sad, dreamy eyes, tearless
and dry, gazing mournfully into vacancy, as though her thoughts were far
away, following the wanderings of her absent father. She seemed to have
been reading, or trying to read, but the book had fallen from her hand,
and lay unheeded on the floor.

Mrs. Travilla, stood for several minutes gazing with tearful eyes at the
melancholy little figure, marking with an aching heart the ravages that
sorrow had already made in the wan child face; then stealing softly in,
sat down by her side, and took the little forlorn one into her kind
motherly embrace, laying the weary little head down on her breast.

Elsie did not speak, but merely raised her eyes for an instant to Mrs.
Travilla's face, with the dreary smile her son had spoken of, and then
dropped them again with a sigh that was half a sob.

Mrs. Travilla pressed her quivering lips on the child's forehead, and a
scalding tear fell on her cheek.

Elsie started, and again raising her mournful eyes, said, in a husky
whisper, "Don't, dear Mrs. Travilla _don't_ cry. I never _cry_ now."

"And why not, darling? Tears are often a blessed relief to an aching
heart, and I think it would do you good; these dry eyes need it."

"No--no--I _cannot_; they are all dried up--and it is well, for they
always displeased my papa,"

There was a dreary hopelessness in her tone, and in the mournful shake of
her head, that was very touching.

Mrs. Travilla sighed, and pressed the little form closer to her heart.

"Elsie, dear," she said, "you must not give way to despair. Your troubles
have not come by chance; you know, darling, who has sent them; and
remember, it is those whom the Lord _loveth_ he chasteneth, and he will
not _always_ chide, neith