"Dinsmore, you're a brute!"
"Papa, how could he say that!" and the fair face flushed with momentary excitement and anger towards the father of her child, whom she so thoroughly respected ind so dearly loved.
"Ah, don't be angry with him," said Mr. Dinsmore; "I was the culprit. You cannot have forgotten your fall from the piano-stool which came so near making me childless? It was he who ran in first, lifted you, and laid you on the sofa with the blood streaming from the wounded temple over your curls and your white dress. Ah, I can never forget the sad sight, or the pang that shot through my heart with the thought that you were dead. It was as he laid you down that Travilla turned to me with those indignant words, and I felt that I fully deserved them. And yet I was even more cruel afterwards, when next you refused to obey when I bade you offend against your conscience."
"Don't let us think or talk of it any more, dear father; I love far better to dwell upon the long years that followed, full of the tenderest care and kindness. You certainly can find nothing to blame yourself with in them."
"Yes; I governed you too much. It would probably have ruined a less amiable temper, a less loving heart, than yours. It is well for parents to be sometimes a little blind to trivial faults. And I was so strict, so stern, so arbitrary, so severe. My dear, be more lenient to your child. But of course she will never find sternness in either you or her father."
"I think not, papa; unless she proves very head-strong; but you surely cannot mean to advise us not to require the prompt, cheerful, implicit obedience you have always exacted from all your children?"
"No, daughter; though you might sometimes excuse or pardon a little forgetfulness when the order has not been of vital importance," he answered, with a smile.
There was a moment's silence: then looking affectionately into her father's face, Elsie said, "I am so glad, papa, that we have had this talk. Edward and I have had several on the same subject (for we are very, very anxious to train our little one aright); and I find that we all agree. But you must be tired acting the part of nurse. Please lay her in my arms."
"I am not tired, but I see you want her," he answered with a smile, doing as she requested.
"Ah, you precious wee pet! you lovely, lovely little darling!" the young mother said, clasping her child to her bosom, and softly kissing the velvet cheek. "Papa, is she really beautiful? or is it only the mother love that makes her so in my eyes?"