"I am fully satisfied with you just as you are," he said, bending down over her and touching his lips two or three times to her forehead, "My darling, my first-born and best-beloved child! no words can express the love and tenderness I feel for you, or my pity for the grief which is beyond my power to relieve." "Dear papa, your sympathy is very sweet," she said in tremulous tones, "very, very sweet in itself, and it helps me to a fuller realization of the depth of meaning in those sweet words, 'Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.'" "You cannot be wholly miserable while that precious love and pity are yours, my dear child, even if all earthly loves should be taken from you, which may God forbid should ever happen." "No, papa; dearly as I loved my husband, I am happy in that divine love still mine, though parted from him; and dearly as I love you and my children, I know that were you all taken from me, I could still rejoice in the love of Him who died for me, and who has said, 'I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.' 'I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.' 'I have loved thee with an everlasting love.'" Silence fell between them for some moments, both seemingly wrapped in thought; then Mr. Dinsmore said inquiringly, "You will go to Roselands to-morrow?" "Yes, papa, if you go, as I heard you say you intended, and nothing happens to prevent. Rosie was particularly delighted with Cal's invitation," she added, smiling up at him, "because I had been telling the story of those Christmas holidays that we have been discussing, to her and the other children, and naturally she wants to look upon the scene of all those important events." "It will not be by any means her first visit to Roselands," he remarked in a tone of surprise. "Oh, no, sir! only the first after hearing of those interesting episodes in her mother's life." "But the house is not the same." "No, sir; yet the hall and parlors, your rooms and mine are about where and what they were in the old house." "Ah! well I hope Rosie will enjoy it. And that you may do so, I shall leave you now, begging you to go at once to bed. Good-night, daughter." "Good-night, my dearest, best of fathers," she responded, putting her arms round his neck as he stooped to give her a parting caress. Calhoun and Arthur Conly were now joint proprietors at Roselands. "Aunt Maria," an old negress born and bred on the estate, was their housekeeper, and managed so well that they found themselves as comfortable as in the days of their mother's administration. They, with one younger sister and brother, were all of the once large family now left to occupy the old home, and these younger two were there now only for the Christmas holidays, and at their close would return to distant boarding-schools. Ella, the sister, was eighteen; Ralph two years younger.