"There!" cried Elsie, at length, "we have examined the last one, and I
think I understand it all pretty thoroughly."

"I think you do. And now another thing; ought you not to go and see for
yourself your property in Louisiana?"

Elsie assented, on condition that he would take her.

"Certainly, my dear child, can you suppose I would ever think of
permitting you to go alone?"

"Thank you, papa. And if poor mammy objects this time, she may take her
choice of going or staying; but go I must, and see how my poor people are
faring at Viamede. I have dim, dreamy recollections of it as a kind of
earthly paradise. Papa, do you know why mammy has always been so
distressed whenever I talked of going there?"

"Painful associations, no doubt. Poor creature! it was there her
husband--an unruly negro belonging to a neighboring planter--was sold away
from her, and there she lost her children, one by accidental drowning, the
others by some epidemic disease. Your own mother, too, died there, and
Chloe I think never loved one of her own children better."

"No, I'm sure not. But she never told me of her husband and children, and
I thought she had never had any. And now, papa, that we are done with
business for the present, I have a request to make."

"Well, daughter, what is it?"