Adelaide had then ventured a plea in her behalf, but the reply was: "I don't pity her at all; it is all her own doing."
"So much the harder is it for her to bear, I presume," urged Adelaide.
"There, Adelaide, that will do now! Let me hear no more about it," replied her lady mother, and there the matter dropped.
Poor little Elsie tried to be submissive and forgiving, but she could not help feeling it terribly hard and cruel, and almost more than she could bear, thus to be kept away from her sick and dying father.
It was long ere sleep visited her weary eyes that night; hour after hour she lay on her pillow, pouring out prayers and tears on his behalf, until at length, completely worn out with sorrow, she fell into a deep and heavy slumber, from which she waked to find the morning sun streaming in at the windows, and Chloe standing gazing down upon her with a very happy face.
She started up from her pillow, asking eagerly, "What is it, mammy? Oh! what is it? is my papa better?"
"Yes, darling Massa Horace much better dis mornin'; de doctor say 'he gwine git well now for sartin, if he don't git worse again.'"
"Oh, mammy! It seems too good to be true! Oh, how very, very good God has been to me!" cried the little girl, weeping for very joy.
For a moment, in the intensity of her happiness, she forgot that she was still in disgrace and banishment—forgot everything but the joyful fact that her father was spared to her. But, oh! she could not forget it long. The bitter recollection soon returned, to damp her joy and fill her with sad forebodings.