“No, not always,” he sighed.

“Yes, papa, always,” she said with playful tenderness.  “I will insist upon that; because even when most severe with me, you did what at the time you deemed your duty, and believed to be for my good.”

“Yes, that is true, my dear, forgiving child! and yet I can never think of the suffering you endured during the summer that succeeded the Christmas we have been talking of, without keen remorse.”

“Yet, long before the next Christmas came I was happier than ever,” she said, looking up into his face with a smile full of filial love.  “It was the first in our own dear home at the Oaks, you remember, papa.  You gave me a lovely set of pearls—­necklace and bracelets—­and this,” taking up a pearl ring, “was Edward’s gift.  Mr. Travilla he was to me then, and no thought of one day becoming his wife even so much as entered my head.  But years afterward he told me he had it in his mind even then; had already resolved to wait till I grew up and win me for his wife if he could.”

“Yes, he told me after you were grown and he had offered himself, that it had been love at first sight with him, little child that you were when he first made your acquaintance.  That surprised me, though less than the discovery that you fancied one so many years your senior.”

“But so good, so noble, so lovable!” she said.  “Surely, it was not half so strange, papa, as that he should fancy a foolish young thing such as I was then; not meaning that I am yet very greatly improved,” she added, with a half tearful smile.

“I am fully satisfied with you just as you are,” he said, bending down over her and touching his lips two or three times to her forehead, “My darling, my first-born and best-beloved child! no words can express the love and tenderness I feel for you, or my pity for the grief which is beyond my power to relieve.”

“Dear papa, your sympathy is very sweet,” she said in tremulous tones, “very, very sweet in itself, and it helps me to a fuller realization of the depth of meaning in those sweet words, ’Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.’”

“You cannot be wholly miserable while that precious love and pity are yours, my dear child, even if all earthly loves should be taken from you, which may God forbid should ever happen.”

“No, papa; dearly as I loved my husband, I am happy in that divine love still mine, though parted from him; and dearly as I love you and my children, I know that were you all taken from me, I could still rejoice in the love of Him who died for me, and who has said, ’I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.’  ’I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.’  ‘I have loved thee with an everlasting love.’”

Silence fell between them for some moments, both seemingly wrapped in thought; then Mr. Dinsmore said inquiringly, “You will go to Roselands to-morrow?”

“Yes, papa, if you go, as I heard you say you intended, and nothing happens to prevent.  Rosie was particularly delighted with Cal’s invitation,” she added, smiling up at him, “because I had been telling the story of those Christmas holidays that we have been discussing, to her and the other children, and naturally she wants to look upon the scene of all those important events.”