"Whenever my little daughter writes to me the words I have so vainly endeavored to induce her to speak, that _very day_, if possible, I will start for home." He laid his hand on the handle of the door as he spoke.
But clinging to him, and looking up beseechingly into his face, she pleaded, in piteous tones, amid her bitter sobs and tears, "Papa, dear, _dear_ papa, kiss me once before you go; just _once_, papa; perhaps you may never come back--perhaps I may die.

Oh, papa, papa! will you go away without kissing me ?--me, your own little daughter, that you used to love so dearly?
Oh, papa, my heart will break!" His own eyes filled with tears, and he stooped as if to give her the coveted caress, but hastily drawing back again, said with much of his accustomed sternness-- "No, Elsie, I cannot break my word; and if you are determined to break your own heart and mine by your stubbornness, on your own head be the consequences," And putting her forcibly aside, he opened the door and went out, while, with a cry of despair, she sank half-fainting upon the floor.
She was roused ere long by the sound of a carriage driving up to the door, and the thought flashed upon her, "He is not gone yet, and I may see him once more;" and springing to her feet, she ran downstairs, to find the rest of the family in the hall, taking leave of her father.
He was just stooping to give Enna a farewell kiss, as his little daughter came up.

He did not seem to notice her, but was turning away, when Enna said, "Here is Elsie; aren't you going to kiss _her_ before you go ?" He turned round again, to see those soft, hazel eyes, with their mournful, pleading gaze, fixed upon his face.

He never forgot that look; it haunted him all his life.
He stood for an instant looking down upon her, while that mute, appealing glance still met his, and she ventured to take his hand in both of hers and press it to her lips.
But he turned resolutely away, saying, in his calm, cold tone, "No! Elsie is a stubborn, disobedient child.

I have no caress for her." A moan of heart-breaking anguish burst from Elsie's pale and trembling lips; and covering her face with her hands, she sank down upon the door-step, vainly struggling to suppress the bitter, choking sobs that shook her whole frame.
But her father was already in the carriage, and hearing it begin to move, she hastily dashed away her tears, and strained her eyes to catch the last glimpse of it, as it whirled away down the avenue.
It was quite gone; and she rose up and sadly re-entered the house.
"I don't pity her at all," she heard her grandfather say, "for it is all her own fault, and serves her just right." But so utterly crushed and heart-broken was she already, that the cruel words fell quite unheeded upon her ear.
She went directly to her father's deserted room, and shutting herself in, tottered to the bed, and laying her face on the pillow where his head had rested a few hours before, clasped her arms around it, and wetted it with her tears, moaning sadly to herself the while, "Oh, _papa_, my own dear, darling papa! I shall never, _never_ see you again! Oh, how can I live without you?
who is there to love me now?
Oh, papa, papa, will you never, never come back to me?
Papa, papa, my heart is breaking! I shall die." From that time the little Elsie drooped and pined, growing paler and thinner day by day--her step more languid, and her eye more dim--till no one could have recognized in her the bright, rosy, joyous child, full of health and happiness, that she had been six months before.