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

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СКАЧАТЬ Dinsmore went back to his own room, where he spent the next half hour in pacing rapidly to and fro, with folded arms and contracted brow.

      "Strange!" he muttered, "that she is so hard to conquer. I never imagined that she could be so stubborn. One thing is certain," he added, heaving a deep sigh; "we must separate for a time, or I shall be in danger of yielding; for it is no easy matter to resist her tearful pleadings, backed as they are by the yearning affection of my own heart. How I love the perverse little thing! Truly she has wound herself around my very heart-strings. But I must get these absurd notions out of her head, or I shall never have any comfort with her; and if I yield now, I may as well just give that up entirely; besides, I have said it; and I will have her to understand that my word is law."

      And with another heavy sigh he threw himself upon the sofa, where he lay in deep thought for some moments; then, suddenly springing up, he rang the bell for his servant.

      "John," he said, as the man appeared in answer to his summons, "I shall leave for the North to-morrow morning. See that my trunk is packed, and everything in readiness. You are to go with me, of course."

      "Yes, Massa, I'll 'tend to it," replied John, bowing, and retiring with a grin of satisfaction on his face. "Berry glad," he chuckled to himself, as he hurried away to tell the news in the kitchen, "berry glad dat young Massa's got tired ob dis dull ole place at last. Wonder if little Miss Elsie gwine along."

      Elsie rose the next morning feeling very weak, and looking pale and sad: and not caring to avail herself of her father's permission to join the family, she took her breakfast in her own room, as usual. She was on her way to the school-room soon afterwards, when, seeing her papa's man carrying out his trunk, she stopped and inquired in a tone of alarm—

      "Why, John! is papa going away?"

      "Yes, Miss Elsie; but ain't you gwine along? I s'posed you was."

      "No, John," she answered faintly, leaning against the wall for support; "but where is papa going?"

      "Up North, Miss Elsie; dunno no more 'bout it; better ask Massa Horace hisself," replied the servant, looking compassionately at her pale face, and eyes brimful of tears.

      Mr. Dinsmore himself appeared at this moment, and Elsie, starting forward with clasped hands, and the tears running down her cheeks, looked piteously up into his face, exclaiming, "Oh, papa, dear are you going away, and without me?"

      Without replying, he took her by the hand, and turning back into his room again, shut the door, sat down, and lifted her to his knee. His face was very pale and sad, too, but withal wore an expression of firm determination.

      Elsie laid her head on his shoulder, and sobbed out her tears and entreaties that he would not leave her.

      "It depends entirely upon yourself, Elsie," he said presently. "I gave you warning some time since that I would not keep a rebellious child in my sight; and while you continue such, either you or I must be banished from home, and I prefer to exile myself rather than you; but a submissive child I will not leave. It is not yet too late; you have only to yield to my requirements, and I will stay at home, or delay my journey for a few days, and take you with me. But if you prefer separation from me to giving up your own self-will, you have no one to blame but yourself."

      He waited a moment, then said: "Once more I ask you, Elsie, will you obey me?"

      "Oh, papa, always, if—"

      "Hush!" he said sternly; "you know that will not do;" and setting her down, he rose to go.

      But she clung to him with desperate energy. "Oh, papa," she sobbed, "when will you come back?"

      "That depends upon you, Elsie," he said. "Whenever my little daughter writes to me the words I have so vainly endeavored to induce her to speak, that very day, if possible, I will start for home."

      He laid his hand on the handle of the door as he spoke.

      But clinging to him, and looking up beseechingly into his face, she pleaded, in piteous tones, amid her bitter sobs and tears, "Papa, dear, dear papa, kiss me once before you go; just once, papa; perhaps you may never come back—perhaps I may die. Oh, papa, papa! will you go away without kissing me?—me, your own little daughter, that you used to love so dearly? Oh, papa, my heart will break!"

      His own eyes filled with tears, and he stooped as if to give her the coveted caress, but hastily drawing back again, said with much of his accustomed sternness—

      "No, Elsie, I cannot break my word; and if you are determined to break your own heart and mine by your stubbornness, on your own head be the consequences,"

      And putting her forcibly aside, he opened the door and went out, while, with a cry of despair, she sank half-fainting upon the floor.

      She was roused ere long by the sound of a carriage driving up to the door, and the thought flashed upon her, "He is not gone yet, and I may see him once more;" and springing to her feet, she ran downstairs, to find the rest of the family in the hall, taking leave of her father.

      He was just stooping to give Enna a farewell kiss, as his little daughter came up. He did not seem to notice her, but was turning away, when Enna said, "Here is Elsie; aren't you going to kiss her before you go?"

      He turned round again, to see those soft, hazel eyes, with their mournful, pleading gaze, fixed upon his face. He never forgot that look; it haunted him all his life.

      He stood for an instant looking down upon her, while that mute, appealing glance still met his, and she ventured to take his hand in both of hers and press it to her lips.

      But he turned resolutely away, saying, in his calm, cold tone, "No! Elsie is a stubborn, disobedient child. I have no caress for her."

      A moan of heart-breaking anguish burst from Elsie's pale and trembling lips; and covering her face with her hands, she sank down upon the door-step, vainly struggling to suppress the bitter, choking sobs that shook her whole frame.

      But her father was already in the carriage, and hearing it begin to move, she hastily dashed away her tears, and strained her eyes to catch the last glimpse of it, as it whirled away down the avenue.

      It was quite gone; and she rose up and sadly re-entered the house.

      "I don't pity her at all," she heard her grandfather say, "for it is all her own fault, and serves her just right."

      But so utterly crushed and heart-broken was she already, that the cruel words fell quite unheeded upon her ear.

      She went directly to her father's deserted room, and shutting herself in, tottered to the bed, and laying her face on the pillow where his head had rested a few hours before, clasped her arms around it, and wetted it with her tears, moaning sadly to herself the while, "Oh, papa, my own dear, darling papa! I shall never, never see you again! Oh, how can I live without you? who is there to love me now? Oh, papa, papa, will you never, never come back to me? Papa, papa, my heart is breaking! I shall die."

      From that time the little Elsie drooped and pined, growing paler and thinner day by day—her step more languid, and her eye more dim—till no one could have recognized in her the bright, rosy, joyous child, full of health and happiness, that she had been six months before. She went about the house like a shadow, scarcely ever speaking or being spoken to. She made no complaint, and seldom shed tears now; but seemed to СКАЧАТЬ