Wealthy and Lottie came to Ion within a fortnight after the return from Viamede; and while the former divided the rest of her stay at the South between Ion and the Oaks, Lottie spent nearly the whole of hers with Elsie.
In May, Harry Duncan came for his aunt, and Miss King returned with them to her paternal home. Our friends at Ion and the Oaks decided to spend their summer at home this year.
"We have traveled so much of late years," said Rose, "that I am really tired of it."
"And home is so dear and sweet," added Elsie. "I mean both Ion and the Oaks, Edward and papa; for somehow they seem to me to be both included in that one dear word."
"That is right," responded her father.
"Yes; we seem to be all one family," said Mr. Travilla, contentedly, fondling Rosebud, whom he had coaxed to a seat upon his knee; "and like a good spouse, I vote on the same side with my wife."
"I too," said his mother, looking affectionately upon them both. "I have no inclination to travel, and shall be much happier for having you all about me."
The summer glided rapidly by, and vanished, leaving at Ion a priceless treasure.
It was a soft, hazy, delicious September morning; Elsie sat in her pretty boudoir, half-reclining in the depths of a large velvet-cushioned easy chair. Her husband had left her a minute before, and she was—no, not quite alone, for her eyes were turning with a sweet, new light in them, upon a beautiful rosewood crib where, underneath the silken covers and resting on pillows of eider-down, lay a tiny form, only a glimpse of the pink face and one wee doubled-up fist to be caught through the lace curtains so carefully drawn about the little sleeper.
A familiar step was heard in the outer room. The door opened quietly, and Elsie looking up cried, "Papa," in a delighted yet subdued tone.
"My darling," he said, coming to her and taking her in his arms. "How nice to see you up again; but you must be careful, very, very careful, not to overexert yourself."
"I am, my dear father, for Edward insists on it, and watches over me, and baby too, as if really afraid we might somehow slip away from him."
"He is quite right. There, you must not stand, recline in your chair again, while I help myself to a seat by your side. How are you to-day?"
"I think I never felt better in my life, papa; so strong and well that it seems absurd to be taking such care of myself."
"Not at all; you must do it. You seem to be alone with your babe. I hope you never lift her?"
"No, sir, not yet. That I shall not has been my husband's second order. Mammy is within easy call, just in the next room, and will come the instant she is wanted."
"Let me look at her; unless you think it will disturb her rest."
"Oh, no, sir." And the young mother gently drew aside the curtain of the crib.
The two bent over the sleeping babe, listening to its gentle breathing.
"Ah, papa, I feel so rich! you don't know how I love her!" whispered Elsie.
"Don't I, my daughter? don't I know how I love you?" And his eyes turned with yearning affection upon her face, then back to that of the little one. "Six weeks old to-day, and a very cherub for beauty. Aunt Chloe tells me she is precisely my daughter over again, and I feel as if I had now an opportunity to recover what I lost in not having my first-born with me from her birth. Little Elsie, grandpa feels that you are his; his precious treasure."
The young mother's eyes grew misty with a strange mixture of emotion, in which love and joy were the deepest and strongest. Her arm stole round her father's neck.
"Dear papa, how nice of you to love her so; my precious darling. She is yours, too, almost as much as Edward's and mine. And I am sure if we should be taken away and you and she be left, you would be the the same good father to her you have been to me."
"Much better, I hope. My dear daughter, I was far too hard with you at times. But I know you have forgiven it all long ago."
"Papa, dear papa, please don't ever again talk of—of forgiveness from me; I was your own, and I believe you always did what you thought was for my good; and oh, what you have been, and are to me, no tongue can tell."
"Or you to me, my own beloved child," he answered with emotion.
The babe stirred, and opened its eyes with a little, "Coo, coo."
"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
