Little Golden's Daughter; or, The Dream of a Life Time

Golden waited, wonderingly and impatiently.

After a little while Dinah returned, and laid a small package, wrapped in tissue paper, in her hand.

Golden removed the wrappers tremblingly. A small bit of crumpled pasteboard fell out into her hand.

She straightened it out and devoured with eager eyes the aristocratic name printed upon it in small, clear, black type.

Then she raised her gleaming eyes to the excited face of the old black woman.

"So," she said with a long, deep, sobbing breath, "this is my father's name?"

"Yes, chile, leastways I has de berry best reason for finking so," replied Dinah, promptly.

"Then you are not sure?" cried the girl, and there was a note of keen disappointment in her voice.

"All I know is dis, honey. It fell outer your mudder's pocket de night when you was born. She was drawin' out her handkercher, an' it fell onto de floor 'thout her seein' it. I didn't say nofin' to de poor, distracted chile. I only picked the keerd up and put it away. I sabed it for you, honey, chile."

"And I am very grateful to you, black mammy," said the girl. "You had very good reason for thinking it was my father's name. But it is a wonder you never gave it to grandpa, or to Uncle John."

"Who? Me gib John Glenalvan anything, or tell him anything? Not to sabe his brack soul from de debbil, who's got a bill ob sale for him!" cried Dinah, flying into a rage, as she always did at the mention of Golden's uncle.

"Black mammy, why do you hate my uncle so bitterly?" asked Golden.

"'Cause he's a snake in de grass," replied Dinah, shortly.

"I know that—at least I have always felt it," said Golden, meditatively; "but there must be some particular reason, mammy. Tell me what it is."

"Well, den, if you mus' know, dere's two reasons," said Dinah. "De first is dat he hated your pore, sweet mudder. De second one is dat he's like a human wampire fastened on your gran'pa."

"I don't understand what you mean by your second reason," said Golden, gravely.

Dinah looked at her a moment in meditative silence; then she said abruptly:

"I don't keer what dey say, I'll tell you, my chile. Your Uncle John done badgered and badgered your grandpa while you was a leetle, teeny babby until, for de sake ob peace, dat pore ole man done made John a deed to Glenalvan Hall and de whole estate. Your gran'pa ain't no more dan a beggar in the ole hall his own fader left him in his will."

"But why did my grandfather give away his property like that?" asked the girl.

"'Cause John swore if he didn't do it dat he would carry you off and put you into a foundling asylum. You was a pore, leetle, deliky babby then, and we skeecely 'spected you would live from one day to de nex' one. So to hab de pleasure ob keepin' an' tendin' you de ole man 'sented to beggar hisself."

"Grandpa did all that for my unworthy sake, and yet I reproached him for being strict and hard with me! Oh, how wicked and ungrateful he must think me," cried the girl, tearfully.

"No he don't, honey, chile," said the black woman, soothingly, "you see he knowed dat you wasn't 'ware of all what you had to t'ank him for."

"No, indeed, I never dreamed of all I had cost him," exclaimed beautiful Golden, self-reproachfully. "And so, black mammy, we are only staying at Glenalvan Hall on the sufferance of my uncle?"

"Dat's jest de way ob it, missie. And, look ye, too dat ongrateful, graspin' wilyun has done threaten your pore gran'pa, time and ag'in, to pack bofe of you'uns off to de pore-house."

"The unnatural monster!" exclaimed little Golden, in a perfect tempest of passionate wrath.

"Well you may say so," cried Dinah, in a fever of sympathy. "De debbil will nebber git his due till he gets John Glenalvan! De blood biles in my ole vains when I fink ob all de insults dat man has heaped on his own fader, 'long ob you and your pore misguided mudder."

Beautiful little Golden sat upright regarding the excited old woman in grave silence. Her blue eyes were on fire with indignation and grief. At times she would murmur: "Poor, dear grandpa, dear true-hearted grandpa," and relapse into silence again.

She roused herself at last from her musing mood, and looked up at Dinah. There was a hopeful light in the soft, blue eyes, so lately drowned in tears of sorrow and despair.

"Black mammy, I have been thinking," she said, "and I will tell you what I mean to do."

"What, honey?"

"I will tell you a secret, mammy. Mr. Chesleigh loves me. We are—that is, I will be his wife one of these days."

"Miss Golden, is dat so?" cried black mammy, delighted. "I am so glad! I was 'fraid—well, nebber min' what I was 'fraid of, chile; but 'deed I is so glad dat Mr. Chesly's gwine to marry you. He is a rich man, honey. You kin snap your lily fingers at ugly Marse John, when once you is Mr. Chesly's wife."

"Yes, he is very rich, black mammy," said the girl, with a pretty, almost childish complacency. "He has told me so, and he tells me I shall have jewels and fine dresses, and all that heart could desire when I go to live with him—I mean," blushing rosy red, "when I become his wife."

"And powerful pretty you will look in dem fine tings, honey," said her black mammy, admiringly.

"But the best thing of all, black mammy, is that I shall be able to take grandpa away from this place, and love him and care for him," cried Golden, exultantly. "I shall take you, too, mammy, for you have been the only mother I ever knew. Grandpa shall have the happiest home in the world, and Bert and I will both love him dearly, dearly!"

"And your pore, lost mudder, darlin', you had forgotten her," said Dinah, a little wistfully, her thoughts straying back through the mist of years, to the lost little nursling who had fluttered from the safe parental nest, and steeped the white wings of her soul in the blackness of sin.

But Golden shook her dainty head decidedly.

"No, black mammy, I had not forgotten," she said. "When I am Bert's wife, he shall help me to seek and save my poor, lost mother. We will try to win her back to the path of right, and save her soul for Heaven," she concluded, with girlish ardor and fervency.

"May the good Lawd help you to succeed, my innercent lamb," said the good old black woman, prayerfully. "Her little soul was too white and tender for de brack debbil to git it at de last for his brack dominions."

There was a sudden tap at the door. Golden looked at it eagerly and expectantly, while Dinah threw it open.

A small black boy, a servant of John Glenalvan, stood outside with a sealed letter in his hand.

"For Missie Golden, from Mass Chesleigh," he said, putting it in Dinah's hand, and quickly retiring.

Dinah carried it silently to her mistress, who kissed the superscription, and eagerly tore it open.

The thick, satin-smooth sheet rustled in the trembling little hand as the blue eyes ran over it, lovingly and eagerly.

As she read, the tender, loving eyes grew wild and startled, an ashen shade crept around the rosebud lips, the young face whitened to the corpse-like hue of death. She crumpled the sheet in her hand at last, and threw it wildly from her, while a cry of intolerable anguish thrilled over her white lips.

"Oh, mammy, mammy, my heart is broken—broken! I shall never see him again. He has forsaken me for my mother's sin!"

Then she fell back cold and rigid, like one dead upon the bed. Dinah flew to her assistance, cursing in her heart the wickedness and heartlessness of men.

But though she worked busily and anxiously, the morning sun rode high in the heavens before the deeply-stricken girl recovered her consciousness. Her grandfather was watching beside her pillow when her eyes first opened, and she threw her arms around his neck and wept long and bitterly on his faithful breast.

"You were right," she whispered to him. "You know the cruel world better than I did. He has left me, grandpa—I shall never see him again. He discards me for my mother's sin."

She wept and moaned all day, refusing all consolation. She was terrified by the coldness and cruelty of the world that condemned her for the sins of others.