“Then I shall make the sale; and I think the time will come when you will be very glad that I did.”

Mr. Dinsmore presently said good-bye and went away, leaving them alone.

“Are not your arms tired, little wife?” asked Mr. Travilla.

“No, dear; ah, it is so sweet to have her little head lying here; to feel her little form, and know that she is my own, own precious treasure.”

He rose, gently lifted her in his arms, put himself in the easy chair and placed her on his knee.

“Now I have you both.  Darling, do you know that I love you better to-day than I ever did before?”

“Ah, but you have said that many times,” she answered, with an arch, yet tender smile.

“And it is always true.  Each day I think my love as great as it can be, but the next I find it still greater.”

“And I have felt angry with you to-day, for the first time since you told me of your love.”  Her tone was remorseful and pleading, as though she would crave forgiveness.

“Angry with me, my dearest?  In what can I have offended?” he asked in sorrowful surprise.

“Papa was saying that he had sometimes been too hard with me, and had fully deserved the epithet you once bestowed upon him in your righteous indignation.  It was when I fell from the piano-stool; do you remember?”

“Ah, yes, I can never forget it.  And I called him a brute.  But you will forgive what occurred so long ago? and in a moment of anger aroused by my great love for you?”

“Forgive you, my husband? ah, it is I who should crave forgiveness, and I do, though it was a momentary feeling; and now I love you all the better for the great loving heart that prompted the exclamation.”

“We will exchange forgiveness,” he whispered, folding her closer to his heart.

CHAPTER NINETEENTH.

“Sweet is the image of the brooding dove! 
Holy as heaven a mother’s tender love! 
The love of many prayers, and many tears
Which changes not with dim, declining years—­
The only love which, on this teeming earth,
Asks no return for passion’s wayward birth.” 

                                              —­MRS. NORTON’S DREAM.

“Death is another life.” 
—­BAILEY.

No mortal tongue or pen can describe the new, deep fountain of love the birth of her child had opened in our Elsie’s heart.

Already a devoted wife and daughter, she was the tenderest, most careful, most judicious of mothers; watching vigilantly over the welfare, physical, moral, and spiritual, of her precious charge.

Often she took it with her to her closet, or kneeling beside its cradle, sent up fervent petitions to Him who, while on earth, said, “Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, to come unto Me,” that He would receive her little one, and early make her a lamb of His fold.