"Yes, baby and mammies and all. Will you come?"
"May Elsie, mamma?"
"Yes, pet; we will all go, if your papa is willing." And her soft eyes sought her husband's face with a look of love and confidence that said she well knew he would never deny her any good in his power to bestow.
"I have been proposing to my daughter to take possession again, for as long a time as she finds it convenient and agreeable, of her old suite of rooms at the Oaks. I think the change would do her good, and perhaps you and the little ones also," Mr. Dinsmore explained.
"Thank you; I think it would. When will you go, little wife?"
"Papa proposes taking me at once."
"My carriage is at the door, and this is the pleasantest part of the day," remarked Mr. Dinsmore.
"Ah, yes; then take Elsie with you, and I will follow shortly with children and servants. There is no reason in the world why she should not go, if she wishes, and stay as long as she likes."
The change proved beneficial to Elsie; it was so pleasant to find herself again a member of her father's family; and that even without a short separation from her husband and little ones.
Here, too, absent from the scenes so closely associated with the memory of her beloved mother-in-law, she dwelt less upon her loss, while at the same time she was entertained and cheered by constant intercourse with father, Rose, and young brother and sister. It was indeed a cheering thing to all parties to be thus brought together for a time as one family in delightful social intercourse.