"My dear, I often wished
he would only give me the opportunity; it would have been so great a
pleasure to give up my wishes for one I loved so dearly."
"Then he never ordered you?"
"Yes, once--very soon after our marriage--he laid his commands upon me to
cease calling him Mr. Travilla and say Edward," Elsie said, with a dreamy
smile and a far-away look in her soft brown eyes.
"He was very much older than I, and knowing him from very early childhood,
as a grown-up gentleman and my father's friend, I had been used to calling
him Mr. Travilla, and could hardly feel it respectful to drop the title.
"The only other order he ever gave me was not to exert myself to lift my
little Elsie before I had recovered my strength after her birth. He was
very tenderly careful of his little wife, as he delighted to call her."
"I wish I had known him," said Zoe. "Is my husband much like him?"
"More in looks than disposition. I sometimes think he resembles my father
more than his own in the latter regard.
"Yes," thought Zoe, "that's where he gets his disposition to domineer over
me and order me about. I always knew Grandpa Dinsmore was of that sort.
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