"Don't be afraid. I shall put you to every possible use; you may be quite certain that your position will not be a sinecure." "Then you'll make me the happiest fellow alive!" "You don't know what you are saying; you don't know what your words mean," cried Elsie, with one of her bewildering glances. "Indeed I do! Oh, Miss Elsie, if you only could--" Elsie interrupted him, as her sister came out on the portico, followed by Mellen. "There is Bessie!" Elizabeth was rejoiced to see honest Tom; he was the only relative she possessed, and she loved him like a sister. She was thoroughly acquainted with his character, and honored him for the sterling goodness concealed by eccentricities of manner which made him so open to laughter and misconception. "I'm so glad to see you!" cried Tom, shaking hands all round again, and growing redder and redder, to Elsie's intense delight. "I've been like a fish out of water since you all came away; I just begin to feel like myself again. Bessie, old girl, are you glad to see me?" "We shall always be glad to see you, Tom," Elizabeth said, glancing at her husband. "Indeed we shall," he said; "you will always find a room at your service, and a sincere welcome." No, Elizabeth never could have cared for him--the idea was simply absurd--he would never think of it again, never! "I can't tell you how much obliged I am," said Tom, twisting about as if his joints were out of order, and he was trying to set them straight. "Your chamber is ready," said Elizabeth; "we expected you to-day." "He doesn't need to go up now," interposed Elsie; "that checked coat is bewitching, and he is going to take me out to row. Come along, Don Quixote--come this instant!" Elsie ran off, and he followed, obedient as a great Newfoundland dog. Elizabeth looked after them a little sadly, and smothered a sigh of anxiety. She saw what Elsie was so heedlessly doing, and knew Tom well enough to understand how acute his sufferings would be once roused from his entrancing dream. So things went on during the whole time of his stay, and there was no help for it. Elsie made him a perfect slave, and Tom no more thought of disputing her wildest caprice, than if he had been some untutored fawn, made captive to the spells of a Dryad. Elsie saw plainly enough that he loved her, but she regarded that part of the affair very lightly. She was accustomed to being loved and petted--it was her right. The idea that it could be cruel or unprincipled to encourage this young fellow as she did, never entered her mind. Indeed, if the misery she was bringing upon him had been pointed out to her, she would only have laughed at it as a capital jest, a source of infinite amusement.