“I am not at all afraid to trust you, Carry, nor the others either,” Elsie hastened to say; “and shall be very glad of your assistance.”

Work-boxes were now quickly produced, and scissors and thimbles set in motion.

Mr. Dinsmore withdrew to the other side of the room, and took up a book; thus relieving the little ladies from the constraint of his presence, while at the same time he could keep an eye upon Elsie, and see that she did not over-fatigue herself with company or work.

“What a nice time we have had,” remarked Mary Leslie, folding up her work as the dinner-bell rang.  “May we come back this afternoon, Elsie?  I’d like to finish this apron, and I’m to go home to-morrow.”

Mr. Dinsmore answered for his little girl, “When Elsie has had an hour to rest, Miss Mary, she will be glad to see you all again.”

“Yes, do come, girls,” Elsie added, “if you are not tired of work.  I am sorry that you must go to-morrow, Mary.  Carry and Lucy, you are not to leave us so soon, are you?”

“No,” they both replied, “we stay till Saturday afternoon.  And intend to make dolly two or three dresses before we go, if her mother will let us,” Carry added, laughingly, as she put away her thimble and ran after the others.

All the guests left the next morning, excepting the Carringtons and Caroline Howard, and the house seemed very quiet—­even in Elsie’s room, where the little girls were sewing—­while Harry and Herbert took turns in reading aloud; and in this way they passed the remainder of their visit very pleasantly, indeed.

Elsie felt her confinement more when Sabbath morning came, and she could not go to church, than she had at all before.  Her father offered to stay at home with her, remarking that she must feel very lonely now that all her little mates were gone; but she begged him to go to church, saying that she could employ herself in reading while he was away, and that would keep her from being lonely, and then they could have all the afternoon and evening together.  So he kissed her good-bye, and left her in Chloe’s care.

She was sitting on his knee that evening; she had been singing hymns—­he accompanying her sweet treble with his deep bass notes; then for a while she had talked to him in her own simple, childlike way, of what she had been reading in her Bible and the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” asking him a question now and then, which, with all his learning and worldly wisdom, he was scarcely as capable of answering as herself.  But now she had been for some minutes sitting perfectly silent, her head resting upon his breast, and her eyes cast down, as if in deep thought,

He had been studying with some curiosity the expression of the little face, which was much graver than its wont, and at length he startled her from her reverie with the question, “What is my little girl thinking about?”

“I was thinking, papa, that if you will let me, I should like very much to give Arthur a nice present before he goes away.  May I?”