"Oh, papa!" she murmured in low, tremulous accents, "love me a little."
"I do love you, Elsie," he replied gravely, and almost sadly, as he bent over her and laid his hand upon her forehead. "I love you only too well, else I should have sent my stubborn little daughter away from me long ere this."
"Then, papa, kiss me; just once, dear papa!" she pleaded, raising her tearful eyes to his face.
"No, Elsie, not once until you are entirely submissive. This state of things is as painful to me as it into you, my daughter; but I cannot yield my authority, and I hope you will soon see that it is best for you to give up your self-will."
So saying, he turned away and left her alone; alone with that weary home-sickness of the heart, and the tears dropping silently down upon her pillow.
Horace Dinsmore went back to his own room, where he spent the next half hour in pacing rapidly to and fro, with folded arms and contracted brow.
"Strange!" he muttered, "that she is so hard to conquer. I never imagined that she could be so stubborn. One thing is certain," he added, heaving a deep sigh; "we must separate for a time, or I shall be in danger of yielding; for it is no easy matter to resist her tearful pleadings, backed as they are by the yearning affection of my own heart. How I love the perverse little thing! Truly she has wound herself around my very heart-strings. But I must get these absurd notions out of her head, or I shall never have any comfort with her; and if I yield now, I may as well just give that up entirely; besides, I have said it; and I will have her to understand that my word is law."
And with another heavy sigh he threw himself upon the sofa, where he lay in deep thought for some moments; then, suddenly springing up, he rang the bell for his servant.
"John," he said, as the man appeared in answer to his summons, "I shall leave for the North to-morrow morning. See that my trunk is packed, and everything in readiness. You are to go with me, of course."
"Yes, Massa, I'll 'tend to it," replied John, bowing, and retiring with a grin of satisfaction on his face. "Berry glad," he chuckled to himself, as he hurried away to tell the news in the kitchen, "berry glad dat young Massa's got tired ob dis dull ole place at last. Wonder if little Miss Elsie gwine along."