Then Elsie, laying her head on her cousin's shoulder, whispered in her sympathizing ear a tearful story of how the afternoon had been spent, and her fear that she had done wrong in going out in the canoe, and that perhaps she might be punished by something dreadful happening to her "dear, dear papa."
"I hardly think it was wrong, dear," Mildred said; "not a very serious fault, at any rate. And I cannot believe our Heavenly Father would visit you with such a punishment. He never treats us according to our deserts. He is 'a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness.'"
"Yes, I know; the Bible tells us that," Elsie returned, wiping away her tears. "How good he is to me, and to all his creatures; it makes me ashamed and sorry for all the sin in my heart and life."
Mildred presently began talking of the old days at Viamede and Roselands, trying thus to help the little girl to forgetfulness of her anxiety. Elsie grew cheerful and apparently interested in her cousin's reminiscences of her babyhood; but still her eyes turned every now and then to the window, and her ears seemed attentive to every sound from without.
The clock struck eight, and with a sigh she drew out her watch and compared the two.
"Oh," she said, "why don't they come? I must go to bed in half an hour, and I do so want to see papa first."
"Do you think he wouldn't let you stay up to wait for him?" asked Mildred.
"No, cousin, he always insists on my going to bed at the regular hour, unless he has given me permission to stay up longer."
The half hour was almost gone—only five minutes left—when at last Elsie's ear caught the sound of a well-known step and voice.