But no, though extended upon a couch, Adelaide was not sleeping, but lay with her face buried in the pillows, sobbing violently.
Elsie's eyes filled with tears, and softly approaching the mourner, she attempted to soothe her grief with words of gentle, loving sympathy.
"Oh! Elsie, you cannot feel for me; it is impossible!" exclaimed her aunt passionately.

"_You_ have never known sorrow to be compared to mine! You have never loved, and lost--you have known none but mere childish griefs." "'The heart knoweth his own bitterness!'" thought Elsie, silent tears stealing down her cheeks, and her breast heaving with emotion.
"Dear Aunt Adelaide," she said in tremulous tones, "_I_ think I _can_ feel for you.

Have I not known _some_ sorrow?
Is it nothing that I have pined all my life long for a mother's love?
nothing to have been separated from the dear nurse, who had almost supplied her place?
Oh, Aunt Adelaide!" she continued, with a burst of uncontrollable anguish, "is it nothing, _nothing_ to be separated from my beloved father, my dear, only parent, whom I love better than my life--to be refused even a parting caress--to live month after month, and year after year under his frown--and to fear that his love may be lost to me forever?
Oh! papa, papa, will you never, _never_ love me again ?" she cried, sinking on her knees, and covering her face with her hands, while the tears trickled fast between the slender fingers.
Her aunt's presence was for the moment entirely forgotten, and she was alone with her bitter grief.
Adelaide looked at her with a good deal of surprise.

She had never before seen her give way to such a burst of sorrow, for Elsie was usually calm in the presence of others.
"Poor child!" she said, drawing the little girl towards her, and gently pushing back the hair from her forehead, "I should not have said that; you have your own troubles, I know; hard enough to bear, too.

I think Horace is really cruel, and if I were you, Elsie, I would just give up loving him entirely, and never care for his absence or his displeasure." "Oh, Aunt Adelaide! not love my own dear papa?
I _must_ love him! I could not help it if I would--no, not even if he were going to kill me; and please don't blame him; he does not mean to be cruel.