"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.
Chapter Nineteenth
"Sweet is the image of the brooding dove!
Holy as heaven a mother's tender love!
The love of many prayers, and many tears
Which changes not with dim, declining years—
The only love which, on this teeming earth,
Asks no return for passion's wayward birth."
—MRS. NORTON'S DREAM.
"Death is another life."
—BAILEY.
No mortal tongue or pen can describe the new, deep fountain of love the birth of her child had opened in our Elsie's heart.
Already a devoted wife and daughter, she was the tenderest, most careful, most judicious of mothers; watching vigilantly over the welfare, physical, moral, and spiritual, of her precious charge.
Often she took it with her to her closet, or kneeling beside its cradle, sent up fervent petitions to Him who, while on earth, said, "Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, to come unto Me," that He would receive her little one, and early make her a lamb of His fold.
And even before the child could comprehend, she began to tell it of that dear Saviour and His wondrous love; then, as soon as it could speak, she taught it to lisp a simple prayer to Him.
Little Elsie was almost the idol of her father and grandparents, who all looked upon her as a sort of second edition of her mother; more and more so as she grew in size, in beauty, and intelligence. Our Elsie seemed to find no cloud in her sky during that first year of her motherhood. "I thought I was as perfectly happy as possible in this world, before our darling came," she said to her husband one day, "but I am far happier now; for oh! such a well-spring of joy as she is!"
"I am sure I can echo and reecho your words," he answered, folding the child to his heart. "How rich I have grown in the last two years! My two Elsies, more precious than the wealth of the world! Sometime I'm half afraid I love you both with an idolatrous affection, and that God will take you from me." His voice trembled with the last words.
"I have had that fear also," she said, coming to his side and laying her hand on his arm; "but, Edward, if we put God first, we cannot love each other, nor this wee precious pet, too dearly."
"No, you are right, little wife. But we must not expect to continue always, or very long, so free from trial; for 'we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.' And 'many are the afflictions of the righteous.'"
"But the Lord delivereth him out of them all," she responded, finishing the quotation.
"Yes, dearest, I know that trials and troubles will come, but not of themselves, and what our Father sends, He will give us strength to bear. 'The Lord God is a sun and shield, the Lord will give grace and glory.'"
This conversation was held when the little girl was about a year old.
Early in the following winter Elsie said to the dear old Mrs. Travilla, "Mother, I'm afraid you are not well. You are losing flesh and color, and do not seem so strong as usual. Mamma remarked it to me to-day, and asked what ailed you."
"I am doing very well, dear," the old lady answered with a placid smile, and in her own gentle, quiet tones.
"Mother, dear mother, something is wrong; you don't deny that you are ill!" and Elsie's tone was full of alarm and distress, as she hastily seated herself upon an ottoman beside Mrs. Travilla's easy chair, and earnestly scanned the aged face she loved so well. "We must have Dr. Barton here to see you. May I not send at once?"
"No, dearest, I have already consulted him, and he is doing all he can for my relief."
"But cannot cure you?"
The answer came after a moment's pause.
"No, dear; but I had hoped it would be much longer ere my cross cast its shadow over
