Both little girls turned round with an exclamation of surprise, and
Elsie, taking hold of his hand, looked up lovingly into his face, saying,
"Oh, thank you, papa; that will be so pleasant."
He held out his other hand to Sophy, asking, with a smile, "Will you come, my dear?"
"If you won't ask me any questions," she answered a little bashfully.
"Sophy is afraid of you, papa," whispered Elsie with an arch glance at her friend's blushing face.
"And are not you, too?" he asked, pinching her cheek.
"Not a bit, papa, except when I've been naughty," she said, laying her cheek lovingly against his hand.
He bent down and kissed her with a very gratified look. Then patting
Sophy's head, said pleasantly, "You needn't be afraid of the questions,
Sophy; I will make Elsie answer them all."
Elsie and her papa stayed for nearly two months at Elmgrove, and her life there agreed so well with the little girl that she became as strong, healthy and rosy as she had ever been. She and Sophy and Harold spent the greater part of almost every day in the open air—working in the garden, racing about the grounds, taking long walks in search of wild flowers, hunting eggs in the barn, or building baby-houses and making tea-parties in the shade of the trees down by the brook.
There was a district school-house not very far from Elmgrove, and in their rambles the children had made acquaintance with two or three of the scholars—nice, quiet little girls—who, after a while, got into the habit of bringing their dinner-baskets to the rendezvous by the brook-side, and spending their noon-recess with Elsie and Sophy; the dinner hour at Mr. Allison's being somewhat later in the day.
Sophy and Elsie were sitting under the trees one warm June morning dressing their dolls. Fred and May were rolling marbles, and Harold lay on the grass with a book in his hand.