Her aunt’s presence was for the moment entirely forgotten, and she was alone with her bitter grief.

Adelaide looked at her with a good deal of surprise.  She had never before seen her give way to such a burst of sorrow, for Elsie was usually calm in the presence of others.

“Poor child!” she said, drawing the little girl towards her, and gently pushing back the hair from her forehead, “I should not have said that; you have your own troubles, I know; hard enough to bear, too.  I think Horace is really cruel, and if I were you, Elsie, I would just give up loving him entirely, and never care for his absence or his displeasure.”

“Oh, Aunt Adelaide! not love my own dear papa?  I must love him!  I could not help it if I would—­no, not even if he were going to kill me; and please don’t blame him; he does not mean to be cruel.  But oh! if he would only love me!” sobbed the little girl.

“I am sure he does, Elsie, if that is any comfort; here is a letter from him; he speaks of you in the postscript; you may take it to your room and read it, if you like,” replied her aunt, putting a letter into Elsie’s hand.  “Go now, child, and see if you can extract any comfort from it.”

Elsie replied with a gush of tears and a kiss of thanks, for her little heart was much too full for speech.  Clasping the precious letter tightly in her hand, she hastened to her own room and locked herself in.  Then drawing it from the envelope, she kissed the well-known characters again and again, dashing away the blinding tears ere she could see to read.

It was short; merely a letter of condolence to Adelaide, expressing a brother’s sympathy in her sorrow; but the postscript sent one ray of joy to the little sad heart of his daughter.

“Is Elsie well?  I cannot altogether banish a feeling of anxiety regarding her health, for she was looking pale and thin when I left home.  I trust to you, my dear sister, to send immediately for a physician, and also to write at once should she show any symptoms of disease.  Remember she is my only and darling child—­very near and dear to me still, in spite of the sad estrangement between us.”

“Ah! then papa has not forgotten me! he does love me still—­he calls me his darling child,” murmured the little girl, dropping her tears upon the paper.  “Oh, how glad, how glad I am! surely he will come back to me some day;” and she felt that she would be very willing to be sick if that would hasten his return.

CHAPTER X.

“In this wild world the fondest and the best Are the most tried, most troubled, and distress’d.”

CRABBE.

It was about a week after this that Elsie’s grandfather handed her a letter directed to her in her father’s handwriting, and the little girl rushed away to her room with it, her heart beating wildly between hope and fear.  Her hand trembled so that she could scarcely tear it open, and her eyes were so dimmed with tears that it was some moments before she could read a line.