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

"Yes, your mamma came to the door while you were sleeping, but went away again, saying that she would not disturb your rest."

"You may go and tell her to come now, Mary."

"I think she is with your uncle just now, dear. Cannot you wait a little while?" said Golden. "She said she would go to him a little while, as you were asleep.

"No, I cannot wait," replied Ruby fretfully. "Tell mamma to bring Uncle Bert with her."

"If you have too much company your head will ache again, Ruby."

"No, it will not. It is ever so much better. Why don't you do as I ask you, Mary?" cried the spoiled child.

Golden went out without any further objection. She asked Celine, whom she met in the hall, to deliver Ruby's message to her mother and her uncle.

Celine looked into the sick-room a minute later to say that they were engaged just at present, but would come in about fifteen minutes.

"Oh, dear," fretted the ailing little one, "that is a long time to wait. Give me my dolls, Mary. I'll try to amuse myself with them."

Golden brought the miscellaneous family of dolls and ranged them around Ruby on the bed, chatting pleasantly to her the while in the hope of lessening the weariness of waiting.

"You must keep your promise and let me go out when they come," she said, presently, feeling that she was growing so nervous she could not possibly remain in the same room with Bertram Chesleigh.

"Very well; you may go into the next room," replied the child.

"You may leave the door just a little ajar that I may call you when I want you."

"I hope you will not want me until they are gone out again," replied Golden.

When the expected rap came on the door, the girl opened it with a trembling hand. She did not look up as Mrs. Desmond and her brother entered, but softly closing the door after them, glided precipitately from the room.

Bertram Chesleigh saw the little, retreating figure in the huge cap and gray gown, and laughed as he kissed his little niece.

"I suppose that was Mary Smith, the prodigy?" he said.

"Yes, and you must not laugh at her," said Ruby, a little resentfully. "She is very good and sweet, and I love her dearly."

There was an element of teasing in Bertram Chesleigh's nature, and Ruby's words roused it into activity.

"She looked very prim and starched," he observed. "She must be an old maid—is she not, Ruby?"

He expected that the little girl would grow indignant at this comment on her favorite, but instead of this she puckered her little brows thoughtfully.

"I don't quite know what you mean by an old maid," she replied.

"You are caught in the trap, Bert. You will have to define yourself," said Mrs. Desmond, laughingly.

"I don't know whether I can," he replied as gayly. "But I think, Ruby, that an old maid is a person who—who doesn't like men, and grows old and never marries."

"Then my nurse is an old maid. You guessed right, Uncle Bert," said the child, with perfect soberness.

"Why do you think so, my dear?" inquired her mother, very much amused at the child's notion.

"Because I know it, mamma. Mary Smith hates men. She told me she did. She does not like to be where men are. That is why she went out just now. She says she will always stay out of the room when Uncle Bert is with me."

"That is very sensible indeed in Mary," said Mrs. Desmond, with decided approval, while Bertram Chesleigh only laughed and said that men were not ogres, and he would not have eaten Miss Smith even if she had remained in the room.

Meanwhile Golden had retreated to the sitting-room, leaving the door ajar as Ruby had bidden her.

Every word of the conversation which had so strangely turned upon herself was distinctly audible.

She listened in fear and trembling to Ruby's disclosures regarding her antipathy to men, dreading to hear some further revelation that would draw suspicion upon her, but the child had no idea of imparting anything she had promised to keep a secret, and the conversation gradually turned upon indifferent subjects, so that Golden, whose heart was beating wildly at the sound of her lover's voice, ventured at last on a sly peep at him through the open door.

The breath came thick and fast over the sweet parted lips as she gazed—hardly as he had used her, the ineffable love and pity of a woman's heart came up to the beautiful blue eyes, and shone out upon the unconscious ingrate who dreamed not whose eyes were yearning over him with all the pain and pathos of a loving, yet outraged heart.

"Oh, how pale and ill he looks," cried the poor child to herself. "He looks sad and altered, too. He has suffered almost as much as I have. Was it that which made him ill, I wonder? After all, he loved me dearly. But if he had overlooked the shame of my birth and brought me here, his sister would have scorned me. Ought I to blame him so very, very much?"

As she asked herself the piteous question, the memory of some words rose into her mind—solemn words not to be lightly forgotten.

"Will you, forsaking all others, cleave only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?"

By the light of those words, Golden answered her own question. With a tearless sob she turned her eyes away from the too dear face of the false one.

But though she would not look at him, she could not help hearing his voice as he answered little Ruby's voluble chatter.

Presently the child showed him her great, wax doll, and when he had admired it sufficiently to please her, she said with an air of mystery:

"You could not guess dollie's name if you tried all day, Uncle Bertie."

"It is something high-flown, no doubt," he laughed. "It is Queen Victoria, or Princess Louise, or something like that."

"You are quite wrong," she replied, with sparkling eyes.

"Am I? Well, I have it now. You have called her Mary Smith, after your old-maid nurse."

"No, I have not," said the little one, merrily. "I have called her Golden—Golden Chesleigh."

In the next breath she added, quickly:

"Oh, Uncle Bert, what made you start just as if someone had shot you?"

"Did I start?" he inquired. "It must have been because I am very nervous since my illness. Well, and what did you say your elegant doll was named?"

"Did you not understand me before? It is Golden Chesleigh—Chesleigh after you, Uncle Bert. Is it not a pretty name?"

"Very!" he rejoined, pale to the lips. "Did you think of it yourself, Ruby?"

"Not at all; I asked Mary for a name, and she said Golden. Then I added Chesleigh."

Some curiosity came over him to see the good nurse who loved Ruby and was kind to her, but who hated men, and who had chosen for the pretty wax doll, the sweet and unusual name of Golden.