pressing a gentle kiss upon each round rosy cheek.

Little Elsie's brown eyes opened wide, and putting her arm about her
mother's neck, "Mamma," she whispered, with a sweet, glad smile, "was
not God very good to give us back our Vi?"

"Yes, dearest, oh, so much better than we deserve!"

Violet started up to a sitting posture. "Mamma, oh mamma, I did have a
dreadful, dreadful dream!--that I was 'way off from you and papa, out in
the night in the woods, and I saw--"

She ended with a burst of frightened sobs and tears, hiding her face on
the bosom of her mother who already held her closely clasped to her
beating heart.

"Don't think of it, darling, you are safe now in your own dear home with
papa and mamma and sister and brothers." Tender soothing caresses
accompanied the loving words.

"Mamma, did I dream it?" asked the child lifting her tearful face, and
shuddering as she spoke.

The mother was too truthful to say yes, though she would have been glad
her child should think it but a dream.

"Perhaps some of it was, daughter," she said, "though my pet did walk
out in her sleep; but papa is going to manage things so that she can
never do it again. And God will take care of us, my darling."