Little Elsie's brown eyes opened wide, and putting her arm about her mother's neck, "Mamma," she whispered, with a sweet, glad smile, "was not God very good to give us back our Vi?"
"Yes, dearest, oh, so much better than we deserve!"
Violet started up to a sitting posture. "Mamma, oh mamma, I did have a dreadful, dreadful dream!—that I was 'way off from you and papa, out in the night in the woods, and I saw—"
She ended with a burst of frightened sobs and tears, hiding her face on the bosom of her mother who already held her closely clasped to her beating heart.
"Don't think of it, darling, you are safe now in your own dear home with papa and mamma and sister and brothers." Tender soothing caresses accompanied the loving words.
"Mamma, did I dream it?" asked the child lifting her tearful face, and shuddering as she spoke.
The mother was too truthful to say yes, though she would have been glad her child should think it but a dream.
"Perhaps some of it was, daughter," she said, "though my pet did walk out in her sleep; but papa is going to manage things so that she can never do it again. And God will take care of us, my darling."
The sobs grew fainter and softly sighing, "Yes mamma," she said, "I asked him to send papa to bring me home, and he did."
"And papa came in here this morning and kissed both his girls before he went down stairs. Did you know that?"