"Who told you all that?" he asked.
"I read it in the Bible, papa; and besides, I know, because I have felt it."
He did not speak again for some moments; and then he said very gravely, "I am afraid you read too many of those dull books. I don't want you to read things that fill you with sad and gloomy thoughts, and make you unhappy. I want my little girl to be merry and happy as the day is long."
"Please don't forbid me to read them, papa," she pleaded with a look of apprehension, "for indeed they don't make me unhappy, and I love them so dearly."
"You need not be alarmed. I shall not do so unless I see that they do affect your spirits," he answered in a reassuring tone, and she thanked him with her own bright, sweet smile.
She was silent for a moment, then asked suddenly, "Papa, may I say some verses to you?"
"Some time," he said, "but not now, for there is the tea-bell;" and taking her hand, he led her down to the dining-room.
They went to the drawing-room after tea, but did not stay long. There were no visitors, and it was very dull and quiet there, no one seeming inclined for conversation. Old Mr. Dinsmore sat nodding in his chair, Louise was drumming on the piano, and the rest were reading or sitting listlessly, saying nothing, and Elsie and her papa soon slipped away to their old seat by his dressing-room fire.
"Sing something for me, my pet, some of those little hymns I often hear you singing to yourself," he said, as he took her on his knee; and Elsie gladly obeyed.
Some of the pieces she sang alone, but in others which were familiar to him, her father joined his deep bass notes to her sweet treble, at which she was greatly delighted. Then they read several chapters of the Bible together, and thus the evening passed so quickly and pleasantly that she was very much surprised when her papa, taking out his watch, told her it was her bed-time.