“Sweet beauty sleeps upon thy brow,
And floats before my eyes;
As meek and pure as doves art thou,
Or beings of the skies.”
—ROBERT MORRIS.
“ELSIE, don’t you want to spend that week at Ion? I think it would be just lovely! I’d a great deal rather go there for a long visit than to Roselands,” Annis said, taking off her hat and twirling it about in her hands, though her thoughts were evidently not on it.
They had just driven home from Ion and were in Elsie’s dressing-room, Aunt Chloe busy about the person of her nursling.
“Yes, I should like to go very much indeed!” was the quick, earnest rejoinder.
“Then coax your father to let us.”
Elsie shook her head. “That would be the surest way to make him say no. But you can go, Annis, if Cousin Mildred is willing, and I think it likely she will be; don’t you?”
“As if I’d care the least bit to go without you!” Annis exclaimed half indignantly. “But are you never allowed to coax?”
“No, not at all when papa is the person. He generally says yes or no at once, and then that’s the end of it. Sometimes he says, ‘I will consider the matter,’ or ‘I am not ready to decide that question yet,’ and then I must just wait patiently till his answer is ready. I think mamma and Mr. Travilla can sometimes persuade him when they try, and I do hope they will try. You know,” she added with a merry look, “he wouldn’t be so rude to them as to refuse to listen to anything they might want to say.”
“No; and I think he might be as polite to you.”
“Papa always is polite to me, I think,” Elsie answered gravely. “But you know it’s his duty to train me up right, so he has to make rules and see that I obey them.”
“Oh, yes! of course; and I ought not to find the least fault with him; to you anyhow.”
“Dar, darlin’, Ise done wid fixin’ you,” remarked Aunt Chloe, smoothing down the folds of Elsie’s dress. “Now, Miss Annis, what kin I do fo’ you? I reckon de suppah bell ring fo’ long.”
Not long after supper Mr. Dinsmore and Elsie were left sole occupants of the parlor. Dr. Landreth had gone to the library to do some writing, being much occupied just now with the business which had brought him South, the ladies were engaged with their babies, and Annis had run after Mildred as she left the room.
Mr. Dinsmore was pacing thoughtfully to and fro, Elsie seated beside the centre-table, turning over some new books, but now and then stealing a furtive glance at her father, very much wishing he would call her to him, broach the subject of the invitation to Ion, and say that he intended to let her accept it.
Presently she caught his eye, and pausing at her side he laid his hand caressingly on her head. “What is it?” he asked, smiling down into the wistful, eager little face. “I see that my little girl has something to say to me. Come, sit on my knee and tell me all that is in your heart.”
He took her hand as he spoke, led her to an easy-chair, and seating himself therein drew her to his knee.
“Now, my darling, say on.”
“Papa,” she said, putting an arm round his neck and gazing straight into his eyes, with hers brimful of filial love to him and joy in his love for her, “don’t you know all about it? you almost always know what I’m thinking about and what I want.”
“Never mind how much I know. I choose to have you tell me,” he said, softly touching his lips to the white forehead and the round rosy cheek.
“Well then, father,” she answered, dwelling slightly, with an indescribably sweet and tender intonation upon that last word, “it is that Annis and I would like, oh, very much! to accept the invitation to Ion, especially if you will go too. I’m not quite sure I do wish to go without you.”
“Well, daughter, I think you know that I dearly love to gratify you?”
“Yes, papa, oh, yes, indeed! and I’ll try not to want to go if you don’t think it best.”
“That is my own dear child,” he said, smiling fondly upon her. “I have been thinking that you and Annis might enjoy having a little company of your young friends here to spend a week or so of the holidays. What do you say to that?”
“Papa! what a nice idea!” she cried, clapping her hands.
“Your mamma and I will probably have some older guests visiting us at the same time. Mrs. and Mr. Travilla, I hope, among others. I trust they will enjoy it, and feel content with a shorter visit from us than they so kindly proposed, and that Annis and you will be satisfied also.”
“I shall, papa, and I presume she will. But please tell me whom I may invite.”
“You may first tell me whom you wish to ask. We will make out a list together,” taking a note-book and pencil from his pocket. “We have some weeks before us, but it may be as well to send out our invitations at once, lest we should be forestalled by some one else. Now then, what names have you to suggest?”
“Carrie Howard, Lucy Carrington, Isabel Carleton, Mary Leslie, Flora Arnott, and—papa, am I to ask anybody from Roselands?”
“No; I shall attend to that. We are all to dine there day after to-morrow, and I shall tell Enna she will be welcome to come, and stay the week out, if she behaves nicely, but that I shall keep an eye on her and send her home if she shows her usual ill-temper and disposition to domineer. Your mamma and I will invite your grandpa and his wife and your Aunt Adelaide. Louise and Lora will not, I presume, care to come—your party being too young, and ours too old for them.”
“But Walter, papa?”
“Yes; Walter must be invited; Edward and Herbert Carrington also, and a few other well-behaved boys of suitable age. They will entertain each other and probably spend most of their time out of doors. These will be enough for you to invite to spend the week. We may, perhaps, have a larger party for Christmas Eve. You may if you wish.”
“Dear father, how very kind and indulgent you are to me!” she said with loving gratitude. “I ought to be the best and most obedient of children.”
“I think you are, my darling; and every day I thank God for giving me so dear, so precious a treasure as my only daughter. Suppose we go now to my study and write these invitations; if you are not too tired.”
“Oh, I’m not tired at all, papa; and I think it would be nice to have it done; because Annis and I are going to be very busy making Christmas things.”
“And learning lessons,” he added, as he rose and led her from the room, “they must always be attended to first; you will no doubt find it difficult at times to concentrate your thoughts upon them, but you can do so if sufficiently determined, and I shall be strict in requiring it; it will be good mental discipline for you.”
“Yes, sir,” she responded with a half sigh, as they entered the study hand in hand.
“Ah!” he said playfully, bending down to look into her face, “papa does not seem to you quite so indulgent as you thought him a little while ago.”
“Yes, papa, in everything you think for my good; and indeed I do often thank you in my heart for not indulging me in other things.”
“I don’t doubt it, my dear, submissive little daughter,” he said in tenderest tones, imprinting a kiss on the sweet, ruby lips, as she lifted her face to his.
“Now sit down here at your writing-desk and let me see if you know how to word an invitation.”
“But I don’t, papa; so please dictate to me,” she said, opening her desk, and taking out a quantity of delicately tinted and perfumed note-paper and envelopes bearing her monogram.
“Very well.”
“But if you would write them for me, papa, that would be better still; I’m afraid I don’t write well enough.”
“I think you write a very neat hand when you try,” he said, dipping her pen into the ink and giving it to her.
“I shall try my very best now, papa,” she answered. “I’ll write Isabel Carleton’s first, if you will please tell me how.”
Half an hour later she wiped and laid away the pen with a sigh of relief, then glanced with complacency at the little pile of dainty-looking notes on the table beside her desk.
“Thank you, papa, for your kind help,” she said, turning to him.
“You are entirely welcome, my darling,” he answered; “and I am well pleased with your part of the work; the writing is very neat and legible. I shall send a servant with them in the morning. Now let us go back to the parlor, for your mamma and cousins are probably there again. And I suppose you would like to tell Annis what you have been doing.”
“Oh, yes, sir; and I think she’ll be pleased.”
They met Mrs. Dinsmore in the hall.
“Letters, Rose?” her husband said inquiringly as she came swiftly toward him.
“Notes of invitation, I think,” she replied, pausing under the lamp to look them over. “Yes, one for you and me,” handing it to him, “one for Dr. and Mrs. Landreth, one for Annis, and one for Elsie.”
“For me, mamma!” cried the little girl, holding out an eager hand for it. “And Annis’s, mamma, may I take it to her?”
“Yes,” Rose replied, giving her the two. “Do you know where she and her sister are?”
“Probably in the parlor,” Mr. Dinsmore said, leading the way thither.
They found the doctor, Mildred, and Annis all there, and delivered them their notes.
“Papa, may I read mine?” Elsie asked softly, standing close at his side. “I haven’t opened it yet.”
“You may,” he answered, with an approving smile.
“From the Howards of Pinegrove,” remarked the doctor. “Well, we accept I suppose, as a matter of course, as there seems to be nothing to prevent.”
“Nothing for me, I believe,” Mildred said, “except that I don’t like to leave my baby long enough to attend an evening party.”
“Nor I mine,” said Rose.
“Oh, we’ll make them an excuse for coming home early,” said the doctor.
“Elsie, are you going?” Annis asked.
Elsie looked at her father with wistful, beseeching eyes.
“Cousin Horace, you will let her go, won’t you?” Annis urged in her most persuasive tones.
“Are you very desirous to do so, daughter?” he asked, drawing Elsie to him, smoothing back the hair from her forehead with caressing hand, and gazing tenderly into the depths of the sweet, pleading eyes lifted to his.
“Oh, yes, indeed! dear papa, if you are willing; and you know you will be there too, to take care of me.”
“You are not very strong and I rather fear the late hours for you; but if you can contrive to take a good long nap in the afternoon of that day, I will let you go, should nothing happen to prevent.”
“Oh, thank you, papa!” she cried in a transport of joy, putting her arms round his neck to hug and kiss him.
“Of course,” he said, looking at Mildred, “I am taking it for granted that Annis is to go.”
“It would hardly do to separate such fast friends,” Mildred said, smiling upon her little sister’s eager, entreating face, “and I am sure I may safely let Annis go wherever Elsie goes with her father’s approval.”
“And I never go anywhere without it, Cousin Milly, and never expect to as long as I live,” Elsie said, with a sweet, happy little laugh, as she gave her father another affectionate hug.
Then she whispered in his ear, “Wasn’t it odd that Carrie Howard should invite me just when I was inviting her? May I tell Annis now? May everybody hear what we’ve been doing?”
He nodded a smiling assent, and she immediately availed herself of the permission.
The older people all entered into her pleasure, and Annis was greatly pleased with her news.