“Oh, mammy!” exclaimed the little girl, with sigh, “it is such a long, long time since I have been to church.  How I wish papa would let me go to-morrow!  Do you think he would, if I should ask him?”

“Dunno, darlin’!  I’se ’fraid not,” replied the old woman, shaking her head doubtfully.  “Massa Horace berry careful ob you, an’ dat ankle not well yet.”

“Oh! but, mammy, I wouldn’t need to walk, excepting just across the church, for you know papa could carry me down to the carriage,” said the little girl eagerly.

Mr. Dinsmore came in soon afterwards, and, greeting his little girl affectionately, sat down beside her, and, taking a newspaper from his pocket, began to read.

“Papa, mayn’t I sit on your knee?” she asked softly, as he paused in his reading to turn his paper.

He smiled, and without speaking lifted her to the desired position, then went on reading.

She waited patiently until there was another slight pause; then asked in her most coaxing tone, “Papa, may I go to church to-morrow?”

“No,” he said, decidedly, and she dared not say another word; but she was sadly disappointed, and the tears sprang to her eyes, and presently one rolled down and fell upon her lap.

He saw it, and giving her a glance of mingled surprise and displeasure, put her back upon the sofa again, and returned to his paper.

She burst into sobs and tears at that, and laying her head down upon the cushion, cried bitterly.

Her father took no notice for a little while; then said, very gravely, “Elsie, if you are crying because I have put you off my knee, that is not the way to get back again.  I must have cheerful submission from my little girl, and it was precisely because you were crying that I put you down.”

“Please take me again, papa, and I won’t cry any more,” she answered, wiping her eyes.

He took her in his arms again, and she nestled close to him, and laid her head down on his breast with a sigh of satisfaction.

“You must learn not to cry when I do not see fit to acquiesce in your wishes, my daughter,” he said, stroking her hair.  “I do not think you quite well enough yet to go to church; and to-morrow bids fair to be a stormy day.  But I hope by next Sabbath you may be able to go.”

Elsie tried to submit cheerfully to her father’s decision, but she looked forward very anxiously all the week to the next Sabbath.  When it came, to her great delight, she was permitted to attend church, and the next morning she took her place in the school-room again.

She was far from enjoying the change from her father’s instruction to Miss Day’s; yet Arthur’s absence rendered her situation far more comfortable than it had formerly been, and she still continued several studies with her father, and spent many happy hours with him every day.  And thus everything moved on quite smoothly with the little girl during the remainder of the winter.