"How Elsie can what?" asked her father, coming in at that moment, and regarding her with a half quizzical look and smile. "Leave you and mamma for somebody else, you dear, dear, dearest father!" returned Vi, springing up and running to him to put her arms about his neck and half smother him with kisses. "Then we may hope to keep you for a good while yet?" he said interrogatively, holding her close and returning her caresses in most tender fatherly fashion, the mother watching them with beaming eyes. "Yes, indeed; till you grow quite, quite tired of me, papa." "And that will never be, my pet. Ah, little wife, how rich we are in our children! Yet not rich enough to part with one without a pang of regret. But we will not trouble about that yet, since the evil day is not very near." "Oh isn't it?" cried Violet joyously. "No; Lester goes to Italy in a few weeks, and it will be one, two, or maybe three years before he returns to claim his bride." "Ah, then it is not time to begin to fret about it yet!" cried Vi, gleefully, smiles chasing away the clouds from her brow. At her age a year seems a long while in anticipation. "No, daughter, nor ever will be," her father responded with gentle gravity. "I hope my little girl will never allow herself to indulge in so useless and sinful a thing as fretting over either what can or what cannot be helped." "Ah, you don't mean to let me fret at all, I see, you dear, wise old papa," she returned with a merry laugh. "Now I must find Elsie and pass the lesson over to her. For I shrewdly suspect she's fretting over Lester's expected departure." "Away with you then!" was the laughing rejoinder, and she went dancing and singing from the room. "The dear, merry, light-hearted child," her father said, looking after her. "Would that I could keep her always thus." "Would you if you could, my husband?" Mrs. Travilla asked with a tender smile, a look of loving reverence, as he sat down by her side. "No, sweet wife, I would not," he answered emphatically; "for, as Rutherford says, 'grace groweth best in winter;' and the Master says, 'As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.'" "Yes; and 'we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.' Ah, we could never choose for our precious children exemption from such trials and afflictions as He may see necessary to fit them for an eternity of joy and bliss at His right hand!" "No; nor for ourselves, nor for each other, my darling. But how well it is that the choice is not for us! How could I ever choose a single pang for you, beloved? vein of my heart, my life, my light, my joy!" "Or I for you, my dear, dear husband!" she whispered, as he drew her head to a resting place upon his breast and pressed a long kiss of ardent affection on her pure white brow. "Ah, Edward, I sometimes fear that I lean on you too much, love you too dearly! What could I ever do without you--husband, friend, counsellor, guide--everything in one?"