Elsie lay back among her cushions again, watching with delighted eyes as her father held and handled the wee body as deftly as the most competent child's nurse.
It was a very beautiful babe; the complexion soft, smooth, and very fair, with a faint pink tinge; the little, finely formed head covered with rings of golden hair that would some day change to the darker shade of her mother's, whose regular features and large, soft brown eyes she inherited also.
"Sweet little flower blossomed into this world of sin and sorrow! Elsie, dearest, remember that she is not absolutely yours, her father's, or mine; but only lent you a little while to be trained up for the Lord."
"Yes, papa, I know," she answered with emotion, "and I gave her to Him even before her birth."
"I hope she will prove as like you in temper and disposition as she bids fair to be in looks."
"Papa, I should like her to be much better than I was."
He shook his head with a half-incredulous smile. "That could hardly be, if she has any human nature at all."
"Ah, papa, you forget how often I used to be naughty and disobedient; how often you had to punish me; particularly in that first year after you returned from Europe."
A look of pain crossed his features. "Daughter, dear, I am full of remorse when I think of that time. I fully deserved the epithet Travilla once bestowed upon me in his righteous indignation at my cruelty to my gentle, sensitive little girl."
"What was that, papa?" she asked, with a look of wonder and surprise.