“Alice, dearest Alice, your heart is very mournful, and, forgive me for saying it, very morbid.”
“It is? Call Elsie, then. Her feelings are all singularly healthful. Call her, and in her presence just invite me to go with you, simply to go with you—that will be the mildest form of your proposal—and see what Elsie will say. Come, do so.”
Magnus turned with a smile, and beckoned Elsie to approach. Elsie came, with her bright face beaming with interest and inquiry.
“Elsie, my love,” said Magnus, “I have been trying to persuade your mother to accompany us to our new home, and remain there for a few weeks.”
“And leave father so suddenly, when I am leaving him, too! Oh, don’t press her to do any such a thing, dear Magnus. Oh, don’t think of leaving father just now, dearest mother,” said Elsie earnestly; then throwing herself in her mother’s arms, whispered anxiously: “Mother, don’t you love father? Oh, mother, tell me, before I go, that you love father.”
“Yes, Elsie, I do love him. No, Magnus, I cannot leave him. I have helped to bereave him of his child for a season—I cannot leave him.”
“But, oh, Alice!” said Magnus, drawing her apart, “think again! think what you will meet. How can you brave his anger?”
“I shall not brave it, Magnus. It may be just, coming from him. At least I must bear it—patiently, too.”
Just then the door was burst open by a servant, who exclaimed, in affright:
“Madam!—mistress!—doctor!—Miss Elsie! Marster is a riding down the road, post-haste, to the house!”