Mildred and Elsie

It was for the drawing-room at Roselands, and he took Mildred with him to try the instruments and tell him which she thought the best and finest toned.

Mildred was equally charmed with several – two in particular – and they had some little difficulty in fixing upon the one that should be ordered to Roselands.

"I will leave it undecided for to-day," Mr. Dinsmore said at length, "and will call again to-morrow."

On the way to their hotel, and when arrived there, little Elsie seemed all eagerness, yet kept it in check in obedience to an occasional warning look from her grandfather.

Mildred went directly to her room to remove her bonnet and shawl, then sat down in a low chair by the window to rest and think while awaiting the summons to dinner.

She had scarcely done so when there was a gentle tap, as of baby fingers, at her door, and Elsie's sweet voice was heard asking in eager, excited tones for admittance.

"Yes, darling, come in," Mildred answered; and the door flew open and the child ran in, closely followed by her mammy.

The small hands held a jewel-case, and the large, soft brown eyes were full of love and delight as she hastened to place it in Mildred's lap, saying, "It's for you, cousin; my papa said in his letter that Elsie might buy it for you."

She raised the lid. "See, Cousin Milly, see! Aren't you so glad?"

There lay the watch and chain they had helped Mr. Dinsmore select that morning.

A watch was a far greater luxury in those days than it is now, and this a costly and beautiful one. Mildred could scarcely believe the evidence of her senses; surely it must be all a dream. She gazed at the child in dumb surprise.

Elsie lifted her pretty present with dainty care, threw the chain round Mildred's neck, and slid the watch into the bosom of her dress; then stepping back a little to take a better view, "See, mammy, see!" she cried, clapping her hands and dancing up and down in delight, "doesn't it look pretty on cousin?"

"Jus' lubly, honey. Don't Miss Milly like it?"

Aunt Chloe's look into Mildred's face was half reproachful, half entreating. Could it be possible that her darling's beautiful, costly gift was not appreciated?

"Like it?" cried Mildred, catching the child in her arms and covering the little face with kisses, a tear or two mingling with them to the great wonderment of the little one; "like it? Oh it is only too lovely and expensive to be bestowed upon me! Sweet pet, you should keep it for yourself. Cousin Milly ought not to take it from you."

"Yes, papa did say so in his letter. Grandpa read the words to Elsie. And when I's big enough I is to have my mamma's watch."

"But it cost so much," murmured Mildred half to herself, as she drew out the watch and gazed at it with admiring eyes.

"My chile hab plenty ob money," responded Aunt Chloe, "and houses and land and eberyting ob dis world's riches; and she lubs you, Miss Milly, and ef you don' take dat watch and chain she will most break her bressed little heart. Won't you, honey?"

The child nodded, and the soft eyes gazing into Mildred's filled with tears. It was impossible to resist their eloquent pleading.

"Then cousin will accept it with her heartiest thanks, and value it more for the sake of the dear little giver than for its usefulness, its beauty, or its cost," Mildred said, taking Elsie on her lap and holding her in a close, loving embrace. "Dear little girlie," she murmured tenderly, "cousin will never intentionally rob you of the smallest pleasure or plant the least thorn in your path."

Another light tap at the door, and Mr. Dinsmore joined them. "Ah! that is right," he said with a smiling glance at the chain about Mildred's neck.

"Uncle, it is too much. You should not have allowed it. How could you?" Mildred asked half reproachfully.

"I only obeyed orders," was his laughing rejoinder. "Horace feels, as I do also, that we owe a debt of gratitude to your mother – to say nothing of the affection we have for you all; and he knows from the reports I have given him of his child that he could not afford her a greater gratification than the permission to do this. Beside, you have been extremely kind to her, and ought not to object to her making you some small return in the only way she can."

"O uncle! her love and sweet caresses have more than recompensed the little I have been able to do for her, the darling!" cried Mildred, heaping fresh caresses upon the little fair one.

Mr. Lord called that afternoon to report himself as arrived in the city, and to inquire if it were Mildred's intention to accept his escort on the homeward journey. His stay would necessarily be short – not more than two or three days.

Mildred met him with outstretched hand and eyes shining with pleasure. She had been so long away from home, was so hungry for a sight of anything connected with Pleasant Plains, that had she unexpectedly encountered Damaris Drybread she would very probably have greeted her with something like affection.

She perceived no change in Mr. Lord, except that he had a new set of teeth; he seemed to her in all other respects precisely what he was when she bade him good-by a year ago; but he was astonished, bewildered, delighted at the change in her. He had always admired her fresh young beauty, but it was as though the sweet bud had blossomed into the half-blown, lovely rose, with just a few of its petals still softly folded.

He blushed and stammered, answered her eager queries about old friends, and all that had been going on in Pleasant Plains since she left, in the most absent-minded way, and scarcely took his eyes from her face. In short, so conducted himself as to make his feelings toward her evident to the most careless observer.

"Mildred," said Mrs. Dinsmore, when at last he had taken his departure for that day, "if I were your mother you should stay from home another year before I would trust you to travel with that man!"

"Why, aunt, you cannot think him anything but a good man!" exclaimed the girl in astonishment.

"Humph! that's a question I don't pretend to decide. But don't, I beg of you, let him persuade you on the way that it is your duty to marry him. If he can only make you believe it's your duty, you'll do it whether you want to or not."

Mildred's cheek flushed hotly. "O Aunt Dinsmore!" she cried, "he could never be so foolish! why, he is old enough to be my father, and so wise and good; and I but a silly young thing, as unfit as possible for the duties and responsibilities of a – "

"Minister's wife," suggested Mrs. Dinsmore, as the young girl broke off in confusion. "Well, I don't know about that; you are pious enough in all conscience. But, Mildred, you positively must reject him; it would be a terribly hard life, and – "

"Aunt, he has not offered, and I believe, I hope, never will. So I am not called upon to consider the question of acceptance or rejection."

"That was very rude, Miss Keith – your interrupting me in that way," Mrs. Dinsmore said, half in displeasure, half in sport. "Well, if you will allow me, I shall finish what I had to say. I've set my heart on seeing you and Charlie Landreth make a match. There! why do you color so, and turn your head away? Charlie likes you – is in fact deeply in love, I feel perfectly certain, and doubtless will follow you before long. You may take my word for it that he would have proposed before we left the springs if it hadn't been for that sudden summons to his dying sister."

Mildred made no reply; she had kept her face studiously averted, and was glad that the entrance, at that moment, of a servant with a letter for Mrs. Dinsmore gave her an opportunity to escape from the room.

CHAPTER III

"And 't shall go hard,
But I will delve one yard, below their mines,
And blow them at the moon."

    Shakespeare.
The sun was just peeping over the tops of the tall city houses as Mildred entered the carriage which was to convey her to the depot. Mr. Dinsmore and little Elsie – the two whom it was a grief of heart to her to leave – were with her; Mrs. Dinsmore and the others had bidden good-by before retiring the previous night, and were still in bed.

"Elsie, darling, won't you sit in cousin's lap?" Mildred said, holding out her arms to receive the child as her grandfather handed her in at the carriage door.

"No, no! she is much too heavy, and there is abundance of room," he said hastily.

"But I want to hold her, uncle," returned Mildred, drawing the little one to her knee. "I love dearly to have her in my arms, and this is my last chance."

"As you will, then; a wilful woman will have her way," he said lightly, as he settled himself on the opposite seat and the door closed upon them with a bang.

The rattling of the wheels over the cobblestones, as they drove rapidly onward, made conversation next to impossible; but Mildred was not sorry: her heart was almost too full for speech. She clasped little Elsie close, the child nestling lovingly in her arms, while they mingled their caresses and tears.

At the depot, too, where there was a half hour of waiting, they clung together as those who knew not how to part. Elsie's low sobs were pitiful to hear, but she stood in too great awe of her grandfather to indulge in any loud lament.

He, however, did not reprove her, but seemed to quite compassionate her grief, and tried to assuage it with promises of gifts and indulgences; for Mildred had succeeded to some extent in softening his heart toward the motherless little one – which she now perceived with joy and thankfulness.

His kindness to herself had been uniform from the first, and continued to the last moment. Not till he had seen her on board the train, and made as comfortable as possible, did he resign her to the care of Mr. Lord; then, with a fatherly kiss and an affectionate message to her mother, he left her.

As the train moved slowly on, she caught a last glimpse of him, and of Aunt Chloe standing by his side with the weeping Elsie in her arms.