"But oh, didn't you want your mamma and papa?" "Yes, sorely, sorely at times; but I think no little child could be happier than I was when at last; my dear father came home, and I found that he loved me dearly. Ah, I am so glad, so thankful that my darlings have never suffered for lack of love." "I too, mamma." "And I." "And I," they exclaimed, clinging about her and loading her with caresses. "Hark!" she said, "I hear your dear grandpa's step, and there, he is knocking at the door." Eddie ran to open it. "Ah, I thought I should find you here, daughter," Mr. Dinsmore said, coming in. "I, too, want to see these things; it is long since I looked at them." She gave him a pleased look and smile, and stepping to the closet he stood for some moments silently gazing upon its treasures. "You do well to preserve them with care as mementoes of your mother," he remarked, coming back and seating himself by her side. "O grandpa, you could tell us more about her, and dear mamma too, when she was a little girl!" said little Elsie, seating herself upon his knee, twining her arms about his neck, and looking coaxingly into his face. "Ah, what a dear little girl your mamma was at your age!" he said, stroking her hair and gazing fondly first at her and then at her mother, "the very joy of my heart and delight of my eyes! though not dearer than she is now." Elsie returned the loving glance and smile, while her namesake daughter remarked, "Mamma couldn't be nicer or sweeter than she is now; nobody could." "No, no! no indeed!" chimed in the rest of the little flock. "But grandpa please tell the story. You never did tell it to us." "No," he said, half sighing, "but you shall have it now." Then went on to relate how he had first met their mother's mother, then a very beautiful girl of fifteen. An acquaintance took him to call upon a young lady friend of his, to whom Elsie Grayson was paying a visit, and the two were in the drawing-room together when the young men entered. "What did you think the first minute you saw her, grandpa?" asked Eddie. "That she had the sweetest, most beautiful face and perfect form I had ever laid eyes on, and that I would give all I was worth to have her for my own." "Love at first sight," his daughter remarked, with a smile, "and it was mutual." "Yes she told me afterward that she had loved me from the first; though the longer I live the more I wonder it should have been so, for I was a wild, wayward youth. But she, poor thing, had none to love or cherish her but her mammy." "Grandpa, I think you're very nice," put in little Vi, leaning on his knee, and gazing affectionately into his face. "I'm glad you do," he said, patting her soft round cheek. "But to go on with my story. I could not keep away from my charmer, and for the next few weeks we saw each other daily.