You have resisted my authority for a long time now, and I must try the effect of placing you under new influences.

I fear Chloe has, at least tacitly, encouraged you in your rebellion, and therefore I intend to keep you apart until you have learned to be submissive and obedient." "Dear papa," replied the little girl meekly, "you wrong poor mammy, if you think she would ever uphold me in disobedience to you; for on the contrary, she has always told me that I ought, on all occasions, to yield a ready and cheerful obedience to every command, or even _wish_ of yours, unless it was contrary to the word of God." "There! that is just it!" said he, interrupting her with a frown; "she and Mrs.Murray have brought you up to believe that you and they are wiser and more capable of interpreting the Bible, and deciding questions of right and wrong, than your father; and that is precisely the notion that I am determined to get out of your head." She opened her lips to reply, but bidding her be silent, he turned to leave her; but she clung to him, looking beseechingly up into his face.
"Well," he said, "what is it--what do you want ?" She struggled for utterance.
"Oh, papa!" she sobbed, "I feel so sad and lonely to-night--will you not sit down a little while and take me on your knee ?--my heart aches so to lay my head against you just for one moment.

Oh, papa, dear papa, will you not let me--will you not kiss me once, _just once_?
You know I am all alone!--_all alone_!" He could not resist her pleading looks and piteous accents.

A tear trembled in his eye, and hastily seating himself, he drew her to his knee, folded her for an instant in his arms, laid her head against his breast, kissed her lips, her brow, her cheek; and then putting her from him, without speaking a word, walked quickly away.
Elsie stood for a moment where he had left her, then sinking on her knees before the sofa, whence he had just risen, she laid her head down upon it, weeping and sobbing most bitterly, "Oh! papa, papa! oh, mammy, mammy, dear, dear mammy! you are all gone, all gone! and I am alone! alone! all alone!--nobody to love me--nobody to speak to me.

Oh, mammy! Oh, papa! come back, come back to me--to your poor little Elsie, for my heart is breaking." Alas! that caress, so earnestly pleaded for, had only by contrast increased her sense of loneliness and desolation.