almost broke his little daughter's heart to look at him.

Very sad and lonely weeks those had been to her, poor child! She
was never once permitted to see him, and the whole family treated her
with marked coldness and neglect. She had returned to her duties in the
school-room--her father having sent her a command to that effect, as soon
as he was sufficiently recovered to think of her--and she tried to attend
faithfully to her studies, but more than once Miss Day had seen the tears
dropping upon her book or slate, and reproved her sharply for not giving
her mind to her lessons, and for indulging in what she called her
"babyish propensities."

Mr. Dinsmore made his first appearance in the family circle one morning
at breakfast, a servant assisting him down stairs and seating him in an
easy-chair at the table, just as the others were taking their places.

Warm congratulations were showered upon him from all sides. Enna ran
up to him, exclaiming, "I'm _so_ glad to see you down again, brother
Horace;" and was rewarded with a smile and a kiss; while poor little
Elsie, who had been directed, she knew not why, to take her old seat
opposite to his, was unable to utter a word, but stood with one hand on
the back of her chair, pale and trembling with emotion, watching him with
eyes so blinded by tears that she could scarcely see. But no one seemed
to notice her, and her father did not once turn his eyes that way.

She thought of the morning when she had first met him there, her poor
little heart hungering so for his love; and it seemed as if she had gone
back again to that time; and yet it was worse; for now she had learned
to love him with an intensity of affection she had then never known,
and having tasted the sweetness of his love, her sense of suffering at