When the appointed day came it found all in readiness for the journey.
Mr. Dinsmore and Elsie accompanied the travellers to the city, saw them on board the train and took leave of them there.
“O papa!” Elsie said, sobbing on his breast as they drove homeward, “partings are so dreadful!—partings from those you love and don’t expect to see again for a long, long while.”
“Yes, darling; I feel them to be so myself, and I know it must be harder still for a little one like you with such a loving, tender heart,” he answered, soothing her with caresses.
“How selfish I am, dear papa!” she exclaimed, lifting her head to look into his face, and noting its sad expression, “how thoughtless to forget how hard it must be for you to see mamma and little brother go away.”
“Selfishness is quite foreign to your nature, I think, dear daughter,” he returned, “and though I do feel keenly the parting from those dear ones, the weeks of separation cannot look nearly so long to me as they do to one of your age. But we will look forward to the happy meeting we hope for at the end of those weeks. And we have each other still,” he added with a cheery smile. “Should not that be enough to make us at least tolerably happy?”
“Oh, yes! dear, dear papa! How much worse to be parted from you than from all the rest of the world! I will not cry any more,” she said with determination, wiping away her tears and smiling sweetly into the eyes that were gazing so fondly into hers.
She kept her word, exerting herself to be cheerful and to win her father from sad thoughts by loving caresses and sweet, innocent prattle.
He seconded her efforts, and before they reached home they were laughing and jesting right merrily.
But as they crossed the threshold she said with quivering lip and tremulous voice, “Papa, how very lonely it seems! and it will be still more so in my own room; without Annis and away from you.”