Elsie's Womanhood Part 3

"What have you been doing that you feel ent.i.tles you to one?"

"I don't remember."

"Nor I either. So let us to business. Here, take this chair beside me. Do you know how much you are worth?"

"Not precisely, sir," she answered demurely, taking the chair and folding her hands pensively in her lap; "but very little, I presume, since you have given me away for nothing."

"By no means," he said, with a slight smile of amus.e.m.e.nt at her unwonted mood. "It was for your own happiness, which is no trifle in my esteem. But you belong to me still."

She looked at him with glistening eyes. "Thank you, dearest papa; yes, I do belong to you and always shall. Please excuse my wilful misunderstanding of your query. I do not know how much money and other property I own, but have an idea it is a million more or less."

"My dear child!--it is fully three times that."

"Papa! is it indeed?"

"Yes, it was about a million at the time of your Grandfather Grayson's death, and has increased very much during your mamma's minority and yours; which you know has been a very long one. You own several stores and a dwelling house in New Orleans, a fine plantation with between two and three hundred negroes, and I have invested largely for you in stocks of various kinds both in your own country and in England. I wish you to examine all the papers, certificates of stock, bonds, deeds, mortgages, and so forth."

"Oh, papa!" she cried, lifting her hands in dismay, "what a task. Please excuse me. You know all about it, and is not that sufficient?"

"No, the property is yours; I have been only your steward, and must now render up an account to you for the way in which I have handled your property."

"You render an account to _me_, my own dear father," she said low and tremulously, while her face flushed crimson; "I cannot bear to hear you speak so. I am fully satisfied, and very, _very_ thankful for all your kind care of it and of me."

He regarded her with a smile of mingled tenderness and amus.e.m.e.nt, while softly patting and stroking the small white hand laid lovingly upon his.

"Could I--could any father--do less for his own beloved child?" he asked.

"Not you, I know, papa. But may I ask you a question?"

"As many as you like."

"How much are you worth? Ah! you needn't look so quizzical. I mean how much do you own in money, land, etc.?"

"Something less than a million; I cannot tell you the exact number of dollars and cents."

"Hardly a third as much as I! It doesn't seem right. Papa, take half of mine."

"That wouldn't balance the scales either," he said laughingly; "and besides, Mr. Travilla has now some right to be consulted."

"Papa, I could never love him again, if he should object to my giving you all but a few hundred thousands."

"He would not. He says he will never touch a cent of your property; it must be settled entirely upon yourself, and subject to your control. And that is quite right; for he, too, is wealthy."

"Papa, I don't think I deserve so much; I don't want the care of so much.

I do wish you would be so good as to take half for your own, and continue to manage the other half for me as you think best."

"What you deserve is not the question just now. This is one of the talents which G.o.d has given you, and I think you ought, at least for the present, to keep the princ.i.p.al and decide for yourself what shall be done with the interest. You are old enough now to do so, and I hope do not wish to shirk the responsibility, since G.o.d, in His good providence, has laid it upon you."

He spoke very gravely and Elsie's face reflected the expression of his.

"No, I do not wish it now, papa," she said, in a low, sweet voice. "I will undertake it, asking Him for wisdom and grace to do it aright."

They were busy for the next hour or two over the papers.

"There!" cried Elsie, at length, "we have examined the last one, and I think I understand it all pretty thoroughly."

"I think you do. And now another thing; ought you not to go and see for yourself your property in Louisiana?"

Elsie a.s.sented, on condition that he would take her.

"Certainly, my dear child, can you suppose I would ever think of permitting you to go alone?"

"Thank you, papa. And if poor mammy objects this time, she may take her choice of going or staying; but go I must, and see how my poor people are faring at Viamede. I have dim, dreamy recollections of it as a kind of earthly paradise. Papa, do you know why mammy has always been so distressed whenever I talked of going there?"

"Painful a.s.sociations, no doubt. Poor creature! it was there her husband--an unruly negro belonging to a neighboring planter--was sold away from her, and there she lost her children, one by accidental drowning, the others by some epidemic disease. Your own mother, too, died there, and Chloe I think never loved one of her own children better."

"No, I'm sure not. But she never told me of her husband and children, and I thought she had never had any. And now, papa, that we are done with business for the present, I have a request to make."

"Well, daughter, what is it?"

"That you will permit me to renew my old intimacy with Lucy Carrington; or at least to call on her. You remember she was not well enough to be at the wedding; she is here at Ashlands with her baby. Mr. and Mrs. Carrington called here yesterday while you were out, and both urged me not to be ceremonious with Lucy, as she is hardly well enough to make calls and is longing to see me."

"And what answer did you give them?" he asked with some curiosity.

"That I should do so if possible; that meant if I could obtain your permission, papa."

"You have it. Lucy is in some sort taken into the family now, and you are safely engaged; to say nothing of your mature years," he added laughingly, as she seated herself on his knee again and thanked him with a hug and kiss.

"You dear good papa!"

"Some girls of your age, heiresses in their own right, would merely have said, 'I'm going,' never asking permission."

"Ah, but I like to be ruled by you. So please don't give it up. Now about Enna?"

"If I had any authority in the matter, I should say, you shall not give her a cent. She doesn't deserve it from you or any one."

"Then I shall wait till you change your mind."

Mr. Dinsmore shook his head. "Ah! my little girl, you don't realize how much some one else's opinions will soon weigh with you," he answered, putting an arm about her and looking with fatherly delight into the sweet face.

"Ah, papa!" she cried, laying her cheek to his, "please don't talk so; it hurts me."

"Then, dearest, I shall not say it again, though indeed I was not reproaching you; it is right, very right, that husband and wife should be more than all the world beside to each other."

Elsie's cheek crimsoned. "It has not come to that yet, father dear," she murmured, half averting her blushing face; "and--I don't know which of you I love best--or how I could ever do without either: the love differs in kind rather than in degree."

He drew her closer. "Thank you, my darling; what more could I ask or desire?" A slight tap on the door and Mrs. Dinsmore looked in. "Any admittance?" she asked playfully.