time.

"Now, daughter, good-night. Come to me to-morrow morning in my study, soon
after breakfast, I have something more of importance to say to you."

"I shall obey, and without fear," she answered gayly, "though I remember
once being quite frightened at a similar order; but that was when I was a
silly little girl and didn't know how dearly my own papa loved me."

"And when he was strangely stern to his own little child," he answered,
with another tender caress.




CHAPTER THIRD.

"So fair that had you beauty's picture took,
It must like her, or not like beauty look."
--ALLEYN'S HENRY VII.


Elsie paused at the half-open door of her father's private room.

Mr. Dinsmore, like most men, was fond of light and air; through the wide
open windows the morning breeze stole softly in, laden with sweets from
garden and lawn, and the rich carpet of oak and green was flecked with
gold where the sunbeams came shimmering down between the fluttering leaves
of a beautiful vine that had festooned itself about the one looking to the
east.