Poor little girl! she felt very much like a martyr in prospect of torture or the stake.  For a time she was in deep distress; but she carried this trouble, like all the rest, to her Saviour, and found relief; many precious, comforting texts being brought to her mind:  “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord as the rivers of water:  he turneth it whithersoever he will.”  “My grace is sufficient for thee.”  “As thy days, so shall thy strength be.”  These, and others of a like import, came to her remembrance in this hour of fear and dread, and assured her that her heavenly Father would either save her from that trial, or give her strength to endure it; and she grew calm and peaceful again.

“The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it and is safe.”

CHAPTER VII.

“Alone! alone! how drear it is
Always to be alone!”

WILLES

It was only a few days after Adelaide had suggested to her brother the propriety of separating Elsie from her nurse, that he had the offer of a very fine estate in the immediate neighborhood of his father’s plantation.

Mr. Granville, the present owner, was about removing to a distant part of the country, and having become somewhat reduced in circumstances, was anxious to sell, and as the place suited Mr. Dinsmore exactly, they were not long in coming to an arrangement, satisfactory to both, by which it passed into his hands.

Horace Dinsmore had inherited a large fortune from his mother, and having plenty of money at his command, he immediately set about making sundry improvements upon his new purchase; laying out the grounds, and repairing and enlarging the already fine old mansion, adding all the modern conveniences, and furnishing it in the most tasteful and elegant style.

And so “Rumor, with her thousand tongues,” soon had it noised abroad that he was about to bring home a second wife, and to that cause many attributed Elsie’s pale and altered looks.

Such, however, was not Mr. Dinsmore’s intention.

“I must have a housekeeper,” he said to Adelaide.  “I shall send Chloe there.  She will do very well for the present, and it will give me the opportunity I desire of separating her from Elsie, while in the meantime I can be looking out for a better.”

“But you are not going to leave us yourself, Horace?” said his sister inquiringly.

“Not immediately, Adelaide; I intend to end this controversy with Elsie first, and I indulge the hope that the prospect of sharing such a home with me as soon as she submits, will go far towards subduing her.”

Mr. Dinsmore shrank from the thought of Elsie’s grief, if forced to part from her nurse; but he was not a man to let his own feelings, or those of others, prevent him from carrying out any purpose he had formed, if, as in this case, he could persuade himself that he was doing right.  And so—­all his arrangements being now made—­the very morning after his late interview with Elsie, Chloe was summoned to his presence.