"Oh! Enna, won't you give them back?" said Elsie, coaxingly; "you know
Flora is a visitor, and we must be very polite to her."
"No, I won't," returned Enna, flatly; "she's got enough now."
"No, I haven't; I can't build a house with those," Flora said, with another sob.
Elsie stood a moment looking much perplexed; then, with a brightening face, exclaimed in her cheerful, pleasant way, "Well, never mind, Flora, dear, I will get you my doll. Will not that do quite as well?"—"Oh! yes, I'd rather have the doll, Elsie," the little weeper answered eagerly, smiling through her tears.
Elsie ran out of the room and was back again almost in a moment, with the doll in her arms.
"There, dear little Flora," she said, laying it gently on the child's lap, "please be careful of it for I have had it a long while, and prize it very much, because my guardian gave it to me when I was a very little girl, and he is dead now."
"I won't break it, Elsie, indeed I won't," replied Flora, confidently; and Elsie sat down to her game again.
A few moments afterward Mr. Horace Dinsmore passed through the room.
"Elsie," he said, as he caught sight of his little daughter, "go up to my dressing-room."
There was evidently displeasure and reproof in his tone, and, entirely unconscious of wrongdoing, Elsie looked up in surprise, asking, "Why, papa?"