Elsie assented, on condition that he would take her.
"Certainly, my dear child, can you suppose I would ever think of permitting you to go alone?"
"Thank you, papa. And if poor mammy objects this time, she may take her choice of going or staying; but go I must, and see how my poor people are faring at Viamede. I have dim, dreamy recollections of it as a kind of earthly paradise. Papa, do you know why mammy has always been so distressed whenever I talked of going there?"
"Painful associations, no doubt. Poor creature! it was there her husband—an unruly negro belonging to a neighboring planter—was sold away from her, and there she lost her children, one by accidental drowning, the others by some epidemic disease. Your own mother, too, died there, and Chloe I think never loved one of her own children better."
"No, I'm sure not. But she never told me of her husband and children, and I thought she had never had any. And now, papa, that we are done with business for the present, I have a request to make."
"Well, daughter, what is it?"
"That you will permit me to renew my old intimacy with Lucy Carrington; or at least to call on her. You remember she was not well enough to be at the wedding; she is here at Ashlands with her baby. Mr. and Mrs. Carrington called here yesterday while you were out, and both urged me not to be ceremonious with Lucy, as she is hardly well enough to make calls and is longing to see me."
"And what answer did you give them?" he asked with some curiosity.
"That I should do so if possible; that meant if I could obtain your permission, papa."
"You have it. Lucy is in some sort taken into the family now, and you are safely engaged; to say nothing of your mature years," he added laughingly, as she seated herself on his knee again and thanked him with a hug and kiss.