Then, seating himself beside her, he took her hand in his; and, closing the door with the other, bade the coachman drive on.
"I suppose you have never been to Ion, Elsie?" he said, inquiringly.
"No, sir; but I have heard Aunt Adelaide say she thought it a very pretty place," replied the little girl.
"So it is—almost as pretty as Roselands," said her father. "Travilla and I have known each other from boyhood, and I spent many a happy day at Ion, and we had many a boyish frolic together, before I ever thought of you."
He smiled, and patted her cheek as he spoke.
Elsie's eyes sparkled. "O papa!" she said eagerly; "won't you tell me about those times? It seems so strange that you were ever a little boy and I was nowhere."
He laughed. Then said, musingly, "It seems but a very little while to me, Elsie, since I was no older than you are now."
He heaved a sigh, and relapsed into silence.
Elsie wished very much that he would grant her request, but did not dare to disturb him by speaking a word; and they rode on quietly for some time, until a squirrel darting up a tree caught her eye, and she uttered an exclamation. "O papa! did you see that squirrel? look at him now, perched up on that branch. There, we have passed the tree, and now he is out of sight."
This reminded Mr. Dinsmore of a day he had spent in those woods hunting squirrels, when quite a boy, and he gave Elsie an animated account of it. One of the incidents of the day had been the accidental discharge of the fowling-piece of one of his young companions, close at Horace Dinsmore's side, missing him by but a hair's breadth.