at the door she encountered her aunt Adelaide.

"What is the matter, Elsie?" she asked, putting her hand on the child's
shoulder and forcibly detaining her.

"Oh! Aunt Adelaide," sobbed the little girl, "papa looks so ill and sad."

"And no wonder, Elsie," replied her aunt severely; "_you_ are quite
enough to make him sad, and ill, too, with your perverse, obstinate ways.
You have yourself to thank for it all, for it is just that, and nothing
else, that ails him."

She turned away as she spoke, and poor Elsie, wringing her hands in an
agony of grief, darted down the garden-walk to her favorite arbor.

Her eyes were so blinded by tears that she did not see that Mr. Travilla
was sitting there, until she was close beside him.

She turned then, and would have run away again, but he caught her by the
dress, and drawing her gently toward him, said in a mild, soothing tone--

"Don't run away from me, my poor little friend, but tell me the cause of
your sorrow, and who knows but I may be able to assist you."

Elsie shook her head mournfully, but allowed him, to set her on his knee,
and put his arm around her.

"My poor child! my poor, dear little girl!" he said, wiping away her
tears, and kissing her very much as her father had been in the habit of
doing.