Pomp came out to receive the visitors.  “Berry sorry, Massa and Missus,” he said, making his best bow to them as they alighted from the carriage, “dat de family am all from home with the single ’ception of little Miss Elsie.  But if you will be pleased to walk into the drawin’-room, an’ rest yourselves, I will call for suitable refreshments, and Fanny shall be instantly despatched to bring de young lady down.”

“No, thank you, Pomp,” replied Mr. Travilla pleasantly, “we are not at all in want of refreshments, and my mother would prefer seeing Miss Elsie in her own room.  I will step into the drawing-room, mother, until you come down again,” he added in an undertone to her.

Pomp was about to lead the way, but Mrs. Travilla gently put him aside, saying that she would prefer to go alone, and had no need of a guide.

She found the door of Elsie’s room standing wide to admit the air—­for the weather was now growing very warm indeed—­and looking in, she perceived the little girl half reclining upon a sofa, her head resting on the arm, her hands clasped in her lap, and her sad, dreamy eyes, tearless and dry, gazing mournfully into vacancy, as though her thoughts were far away, following the wanderings of her absent father.  She seemed to have been reading, or trying to read, but the book had fallen from her hand, and lay unheeded on the floor.

Mrs. Travilla, stood for several minutes gazing with tearful eyes at the melancholy little figure, marking with an aching heart the ravages that sorrow had already made in the wan child face; then stealing softly in, sat down by her side, and took the little forlorn one into her kind motherly embrace, laying the weary little head down on her breast.

Elsie did not speak, but merely raised her eyes for an instant to Mrs. Travilla’s face, with the dreary smile her son had spoken of, and then dropped them again with a sigh that was half a sob.

Mrs. Travilla pressed her quivering lips on the child’s forehead, and a scalding tear fell on her cheek.

Elsie started, and again raising her mournful eyes, said, in a husky whisper, “Don’t, dear Mrs. Travilla don’t cry.  I never cry now.”

“And why not, darling?  Tears are often a blessed relief to an aching heart, and I think it would do you good; these dry eyes need it.”

“No—­no—­I cannot; they are all dried up—­and it is well, for they always displeased my papa,”

There was a dreary hopelessness in her tone, and in the mournful shake of her head, that was very touching.

Mrs. Travilla sighed, and pressed the little form closer to her heart.

“Elsie, dear,” she said, “you must not give way to despair.  Your troubles have not come by chance; you know, darling, who has sent them; and remember, it is those whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and he will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger forever.”