COMING OF AGE COLLECTION - Martha Finley Edition (Timeless Children Classics For Young Girls). Finley Martha

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      "Well, my pet, what do you say to it? would you like to go?" he asked, as he refolded the note and returned it to his pocket.

      "I don't know, papa; it seems as if it would be pleasant, as we are both invited; but home is so sweet, and I am so happy just alone with you that I hardly want to go away; so if you please, papa, I would much rather just leave it all to you."

      "Well, then, we will stay quietly at home," he said, with a gratified look; "and I think it will be much the better plan, for you are not strong enough yet for gayety, and it would be very little pleasure for you to be there while unable to join in the sports, and obliged always to keep early hours.

      "But we might have a Christmas dinner at home, and invite a few friends to help us eat it. Whom would you like to have?"

      "Mr. and Mrs. Travilla, and Aunt Adelaide, and Lora, if you please, papa, and anybody else you like," she replied, looking very much pleased. "I should like to have Carry Howard, but of course I can't—as she is going to have company of her own; and I believe nearly all the little girls I am acquainted with are to be there."

      "Yes, I suppose so. Well, we will ask those you have mentioned, and I hope they will come. But there is the tea-bell, and I shall carry my dolly out to the dining-room," he said, rising with her in his arms.

      "Papa," she said, when they had returned to their seats by the study fire, "may I give mammy a nice present this Christmas?"

      "Yes," he replied kindly, "I supposed you would want to give some presents, and I have just been thinking how it might be managed, as you are not fit to shop for yourself. As you have not had any pocket-money for several months, I will allow you now to spend as much as you choose—provided you keep within tolerably reasonable bounds," he added, smiling; "so you may make out a list of all the articles you want, and I will purchase them for you. Will that do?"

      "Oh, nicely, papa!" she cried, clapping her hands with delight, "it was very good of you to think of all that."

      "De slippers is come, darlin'; Bill, he fotched 'em from de city dis afternoon," remarked Chloe, as she was preparing her little charge for bed that night.

      "Oh, have they, mammy? let me see them!" was Elsie's eager exclamation.

      Chloe went to her room and was back again in a moment with a bundle in her hand, which Elsie immediately seized and opened with eager haste.

      "Oh, how pretty!" she cried, capering about with them in her hands, "aren't they, mammy? Won't papa be pleased?"

      Then starting at the sound of his step in the adjoining room, she threw them into a drawer which Chloe had hastily opened for the purpose.

      "Elsie," said her father, opening the door and putting in his head, "why are you not in bed, my daughter? you will take cold standing there half undressed. Go to bed immediately."

      "Yes, papa, I will," she replied submissively; and he drew back his head again and shut the door.

      "'Mighty narrow 'scape dat," remarked Chloe, laughing; "ef Massa had come jes a minute sooner, de cat been out de bag sure 'nough."

      Elsie made out her list the next day, with the help of some suggestions from her father, and by Christmas eve all the purchases had been made, and one of the closets in her bed-room was quite filled with packages of various sizes and shapes.

      The little girl was all excitement, and did not want to go to bed when the hour came.

      "Please, papa, let me stay up a little longer," she pleaded coaxingly. "I am not a bit sleepy."

      "No, my daughter; you must go at once," he said; "early hours are of great importance in your present state of health, and you must try to put away all exciting thoughts, and go to sleep as soon as you can. You will try to obey me in this?"

      "Yes, papa; I am sure I ought to be very good when you are so kind and indulgent to me," she replied, as she put up her face for the usual good-night kiss.

      "God bless and keep my little one, and give her many happy returns of this Christmas eve," said Mr. Dinsmore, folding her to his heart.

      Elsie had intended to stay awake until her father should be in bed and asleep, and then to steal softly into his room and take away the slippers he usually wore, replacing them with the new ones which she had worked. But now she engaged Chloe to do this for her, and in obedience to his directions endeavored to put away all exciting thoughts and go to sleep, in which she succeeded much sooner than she could have believed possible.

      She was up and dressed, and saying "Merry Christmas!" at her papa's door, quite early the next morning.

      "Come in," said he, "and tell me what fairy has been here, changing my old slippers to new ones."

      "No fairy at all, papa; but just dear old mammy," she cried, springing into his arms with a merry, ringing laugh.

      "Ah, but I know very well it wasn't Aunt Chloe's fingers that worked them," he said, kissing her first on one cheek, then on the other. "I wish you a very merry Christmas, and a very happy New Year, my darling. Thank you for your gift; I like it very much, indeed; and now see what papa has for you."

      And opening a pretty little box that stood on his dressing-table, he took from it a beautiful pearl necklace and bracelets, and clasped them round her neck and arms.

      "Oh, how beautiful! dear papa, thank you very much," she exclaimed, delighted.

      "Your Aunt Adelaide thought you didn't care much for ornaments," he remarked, looking much pleased.

      "I do when you give them to me, papa," she answered, raising her eyes to his face with one of her sweet, loving smiles.

      "I am very glad my present pleases you," he said, "but for fear it should not, I have provided another," and he placed in her hand a very handsomely bound volume of Scott's poems.

      "I don't deserve it, papa," she said, coloring deeply, and dropping her eyes on the carpet.

      "You shall have it, at any rate," he replied, laying his hand gently on her drooping head; "and now you can finish the 'Lady of the Lake' this afternoon, if you like. His prose works I may perhaps give you at some future day; but I do not choose you should read them for some years to come. But now we will lay this book aside for the present, and have our morning chapter together."

      They had finished their devotions, and she was sitting on his knee, waiting for the breakfast-bell to ring.

      "When did you find an opportunity to work these without letting me into the secret?" he asked, extending his foot, and turning it from side to side to look at his slipper. "It puzzles me to understand it, since I know that for weeks past you have scarcely been an hour out of my sight during the day—not since you were well enough to sew," he said, smiling down at her.

      There was an expression of deep gravity, almost amounting to sadness, on Elsie's little face, that surprised her father a good deal.

      "All, papa!" she murmured, "it makes me feel sad, and glad, too, to look at those slippers."

      "Why, darling?" he asked in a tender tone.

      "Because, papa, I worked almost the whole of them last summer, in those sorrowful days when I was all alone. I thought СКАЧАТЬ