Elsie could not fail to be pained to find her dearly loved father and herself so treated by one of her cherished darlings, yet tried to put the feeling aside and suspend her judgment until Edward had been given an opportunity to explain.

The younger children gathered about her, with eager questioning as she rejoined them in the veranda.

“I can tell you nothing yet, dears,” she answered in her accustomed sweet and gentle tones, “but no doubt we shall know all about it soon.  I think she is a dear little girl whom we shall all find it easy to love.  We will do all we can to make her happy and at home among us, shall we not?”

“Yes, mamma, yes indeed!” they all said.

Mr. Dinsmore rose, and motioning to his wife and daughter to follow him went to the library.

Elsie read grave displeasure in his countenance before he opened his lips.

“Dear papa, do not be angry with my boy,” she said pleadingly, going to him where he stood, and putting her arms about his neck.  “Shall we not wait until we have heard his story?”

“I shall try to suspend my judgment for your sake, daughter,” Mr. Dinsmore answered, stroking her hair caressingly, “but I cannot help feeling that Edward seems to have strangely failed in the loving respect and obedience he should have shown to such a mother as his.  He has taken very prompt advantage of his arrival at his majority.”

“Yet perhaps with good reason, papa,” she returned, still beseechingly, her eyes filling with tears.

“We will not condemn him unheard,” he answered, his tones softening, “and if he has made a mistake by reason of failing to seek the advice and approval of those who so truly desire his happiness, it is he himself who must be the greatest sufferer thereby.”

“Yes,” she returned with a sigh, “even a mother’s love is powerless to save her children from the consequences of their own follies and sins.”

Edward, scarcely less desirous to make his explanation than his mother was to hear it, hastened in search of her the moment he had seen Zoe comfortably established upon a sofa in his dressing-room.

He found her in the library with his grandfather evidently awaiting his coming.  They were seated together upon a sofa.

“Dearest mother,” Edward said, dropping upon his knees by her side and clasping her in his arms, “how can I ever thank you enough for your kindness this day to me and my darling!  I fear I must seem to you and grandpa an ungrateful wretch; but when you know all, you will not, I trust, blame me quite so severely.”

“We are not blaming you, my dear boy, we are waiting to hear first what you have to say for yourself,” Elsie answered, laying her hand fondly upon his head.  “Sit here by my side while you tell it,” she added, making room for him on the sofa.

He made his story brief, yet kept nothing back.

His hearers were deeply moved as he repeated what Mr. Love had told him of the lonely and forlorn condition in which he must leave his petted only child, and went on to describe the hasty marriage and the death scene, so immediately following.  Their kind hearts yearned over the little orphaned bride, and they exonerated Edward from all blame for the part he acted in the short, sad drama.