Mildred Keith

Martha Finley

Martha Finley

Mildred Keith

ELSIE DINSMORE.

"She is pretty to walk with,

And witty to talk with,

And pleasant, too, to think on."

    – Brennoralt

PREFACE

The Keith family were relatives of Horace Dinsmore, and as my readers will observe, the date of this story is some seven years earlier than that of the first Elsie book.

The journey, and that most sickly season, which I have attempted to describe, were events in my own early childhood. The latter still dwells in my memory as a dreadful dream.

Our family – a large one – were all down with the fever except my aged grandmother and a little sister of six or seven, and "help could not be had for love or money."

My father, who was a physician, kept up and made his rounds among his town and country patients for days after the fever had attacked him, but was at length compelled to take his bed, and I well remember lying there beside him while the neighbors flocked into the room to consult him about their sick ones at home.

That region of country is now, I believe, as healthy as almost any other part of our favored land. Such a season, it was said, had never been known before, and there has been none like it since.

В В В В M. F.

Chapter First

"Weep not that the world changes – did it keep

A stable, changeless course, 'twere cause to weep."

    – Bryant.

A spring morning in 183-; winter's icy breath exchanged for gentle breezes; a faint tinge of yellow green on the woods but now so brown and bare; violets and anemones showing their pretty modest faces by the roadside; hill and valley clothed with verdure, rivulets dancing and singing, the river rolling onward in majestic gladness; apple, peach and cherry trees in bloom; birds building their nests; men and women busied here and there in field or garden, and over all

"The uncertain glory of an April day."

The sun now shining out warm and bright from a cloudless sky, now veiling his face while a sudden shower of rain sends the busy workers hurrying to the nearest shelter.

The air is full of pleasant rural sounds – the chirp of insects, the twittering of birds, the crowing of cocks – now near at hand, now far away, mellowed by the distance; and in the streets of the pretty village of Lansdale, down yonder in the valley, there is the cheerful hum of busy life; of buying and selling, of tearing down and building up; neighbors chatting on doorsteps or over the garden fence, boys whistling and hallooing to their mates, children conning their tasks, and mothers crooning to their babes.

Out of the side door of a substantial brick house standing far back from the street, in the midst of a garden where the grass is of a velvety green spangled with violets, and snowballs and lilacs are bursting into bloom, steps a slight girlish figure.

The face half hidden under a broad brimmed garden hat, is not regularly beautiful, but there is a great deal of character in it; the mouth is both firm and sweet, the lips are full and red, the eyes are large, dark and lustrous, and the complexion rich with the hues of health.

She sends a quick glance from side to side, clasps her hands together with a gesture as of sudden pain, paces rapidly to and fro for a moment, seemingly striving after self-control, then turning into a path that leads across the garden to the hedge that separates it from another, hastens down it, opens the gate and passing through looks about as if in search of some one.

But there is no one there, and the girl trips gracefully onward to the house, a pretty cottage with vine-covered porches.

The parlor windows were open and within a little lady of middle age, quaintly attired in a chintz gown very short and scant, and made after a pattern peculiarly her own, was busied with brush and duster.

Catching sight of the young girl as she stepped upon the porch, she called to her in a remarkably sweet-toned voice,

"In here, dearie! Just step through the window. I'm glad to see you." The windows opening to the floor, it was an easy matter to obey, and the gi