Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

“ Beauty is only a curse to a poor girl who has to earn her own living."
"Yes, madam," Golden answered, with perfect meekness, though she crimsoned painfully.
"So I think," continued her kind friend, "that a home and shelter in even the humblest capacity is better for you than to be wandering alone in the streets homeless and penniless."
"I know that," said Golden, "but I have nowhere to go," and the pathos of the tearful tone touched the kind lady's heart.
"My child, I have been thinking about that," she said. "I have a friend who needs a nurse for her little invalid girl. ”

“ I shall never find my mother," said the girl, sorrowfully.
"Golden, why should you wish to find her? She is a sinner, leading a life of shame. She deserted you in your helpless infancy to return to the arms of the villain who had betrayed her."
"So Uncle John says," returned the girl, meaningly.
He started, more at the tone than the words.
"Golden, do you doubt him?" he cried.
"Yes," said the girl steadily, turning on him the full splendor of her purple-blue eyes, in which glowed a spark of indignant fire. "Yes, grandpa, I doubt it. ”

“ Elinor demanded, sharply.
"I had nowhere to go—I was friendless and penniless. What could I do but stay?" moaned Golden.
"You should have drowned yourself. You are not fit to live, you wicked, deceitful girl. So you were Mr. Chesleigh's mistress after all, although you swore that you were pure and innocent!" blazed Elinor.
"I am innocent! I was never Bertram Chesleigh's mistress!" Golden cried. "I am his own true——" she stopped with a moan of anguish. "Go, I must not tell—I must keep my promise! Oh, Elinor, you are my cousin. Do not be so hard and cruel!" ”

“ The blow tells fearfully," thought Elinor, watching him through the trees with vindictive eyes. "Ah, my defiant Golden, your last chance is gone now. He will never look at you again!"
"Mr. Glenalvan, you do not mean it. You are but trying my credulity," cried Bertram Chesleigh.
"Is it likely that I would publish a falsehood to my own discredit?" inquired the other.
"No, no—but, oh, God, this is too dreadful to believe!"
"Dreadful, but true," groaned John Glenalvan. "Golden is the child of sin and shame. If I had had my way she would have been consigned to a foundling asylum. ”

“ It was Golden Glenalvan, dressed in a dark suit and light cloth jacket, a neat, little walking-hat, set jauntily on her streaming, golden curls.
Her blue eyes were lifted tenderly, and yet anxiously to her lover's face.
"Oh, Bert," she said, giving him the tender name by which he had taught her to call him, "you must indeed let me go now. We have been saying good-bye at least a half an hour."
"Parting is such a sweet pain," said the lover, bending to kiss the tempting, up-turned lips. "Give me just one more minute, my darling." ”

“ Then she turned from him, and went to her grandfather, who was gazing at her with dazed eyes full of grief and dread. She put her arms around his neck, and kissed his poor, withered cheek with her sweet, quivering lips.
"Grandpa, you must not take me for a ghost," she said. "It is your own little Golden come back to live and love you again. I was not dead, after all. Did I not tell you I could not die yet? But I cannot tell you all the story of my rescue from the grave now. Let us give all our thoughts to our martyred dead."
She looked up and saw her father and old Dinah waiting to greet her. ”

“ Through all the shame and sorrow that came afterward I kept my promise. Do you think I did not suffer more than death in keeping it? When Mrs. Desmond drove me out in such terrible disgrace do you think I did not long to say to her: I am as good and pure as you are; I am your brother's wife! And what did I not suffer when I knew she was separated from her husband on my account? Then when my own father disowned and despised me, how my heart ached to answer, I am Bertram Chesleigh's own wife! ”

“ Chesleigh smiled indulgently at her pretty, childish delight as he led her through suite after suite of the sumptuous, luxurious apartments the day after their arrival.
"I am glad you are so pleased with your new home," he said, "but now, my darling, you must run away and let black mammy dress you. I have invited a few guests to dinner."
"Strangers?" she asked, with a shy pretty blush on the exquisite face that was fresh and sweet as a rosebud with only that pensive droop of the golden-brown lashes to hint at the sorrow through which she had passed. ”

“ John was unfeignedly glad that Golden had gone away herself without giving him the trouble and annoyance of sending her.
"It is much better as it is, father," he said to the poor, broken-hearted old creature. "I fully intended to send the girl away. She has only saved herself the ignominy of a summary dismissal. Do not fret yourself over her. She has only forsaken you to lead a life of shame with her erring mother. I hope that a lightning flash may strike her dead before she ever returns here again to disgrace and shame us yet further!" ”

“ The two sisters exchanged significant glances that did not escape Golden's keen eyes.
"Elinor, why do you and Clare look at each other so hatefully?" she cried out in sudden resentment and childish passion. "What is the matter? What have I done?"
"You have done nothing except to be born," said Clare Glenalvan, irritably, "and under the circumstances, that is the worst thing you could have done."
Was it only the fancy of beautiful Golden, or did the wind in the trees and grasses sigh mournfully, and the blue waves go lapsing past with a sadder tone? ”

“ Yet Golden shivered and trembled as she regarded the fair, smiling beauty. How could she look so bright and careless with the brand of deadly sin upon her? There was neither sorrow nor repentance on the smiling, debonair face.
"And this is my mother," Golden thought to herself, with a strange heaviness at her heart. "She seems utterly indifferent at her wickedness. Ah, she little dreams that the poor babe that she deserted so heartlessly is sitting before her now."
Mrs. Leith's light, careless voice jarred suddenly on her mournful mood.
"Well, I will try you, Mary, for I need a maid. ”

“ Do ghosts have warm, living flesh and blood, and balmy lips, and blushes that come and go, and delicious little tempers, and the power to thrill one's nerves with quivering darts of fire? Have I lost my heart to a phantom?"
He might well ask himself these questions. A day and night had gone since the Glenalvans had their little party, and so far he had been unable to learn anything at all concerning the beautiful girl whom all but himself believed to have been the ghost of the dead Erma Glenalvan. ”

“ It is to him and his family that my poor Golden owes the bitter sorrows of her brief life. My sister's maid, Celine, confessed that it was Elinor Glenalvan who discovered Golden's identity, and bribed her to send her away under a ban of disgrace. Oh, God, Leith, could I only have known that the girl little Ruby loved so dearly, and who shunned me so persistently, was my deserted wife, how joyously would I have taken her to my heart and claimed her for my own. ”

“ Your son will be kinder to you when I am gone, and your life will be less hard; perhaps black mammy will be kind and faithful to you, so you will not miss your thoughtless little Golden very much. God bless you, grandpa, you must pray for me nightly, for I am going to seek my mother, the erring mother who cursed me with life! If indeed, she is living in sin and shame, I will strive to reclaim her and restore her to the safe path of virtue. I have nothing else to live for. Love and happiness, the delights of this world, are not for me. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It so happened that Elinor, whom the hard exigencies of poverty compelled to be her own dressmaker, had sat up late that night to complete some alterations in a dress in which she had intended to array her fair self for the morrow.
Having stitched on the last bit of lace, she went to the window and leaned out to cool her heated brow.
"My head aches, and I am almost melted with sewing by that hot lamp," she said to herself, fretfully. "How I hate this poverty that grinds one down so! When once I am married to Bertram Chesleigh I will never touch a needle again! ”

“ Very thin, and sad, and mournful looked the old man as he sat in his easy-chair, with his lonely thoughts fixed ever on the past. He was old and weary. Life held no charm for him now.
One thought of the last lonely sheaf waiting for the reaper as he sat with his withered hands folded, and that look of patient grief on his thin, white, aged face.
"Oh, my lost little Golden," he murmured aloud: "She tarries long. The quest for her mother is a weary one. ”

“ You were wrong to take such a vow, Golden, and it is almost wicked for you to keep it. Do you see how much is at stake? Through your silence a man and his wife are divided in anger and shame, and a cloud of the blackest disgrace is lowering over your own head. Do you know that it is a fearful thing to come between husband and wife? ”

“ Chesleigh, absorbed in the bitterness of his own despair, did not observe it.
He counted over a hundred dollars into the man's hand, and then said, with a tremor of hope in his voice:
"I will double the amount if you will do your work over to-night. I must see her. I am mad for one last look at my darling's face!"
The grave-digger shuddered.
"Oh, sir, it is too late," he said. "Have you forgotten how soon death's touch blasts everything human? And the little babe—that was dead long before she was. ”

“ I have always longed to have a child of my own to love. It seemed as if my heart was always yearning for the daughter I believed to be dead. But Golden," he looked at her anxiously and pleadingly as he clasped her little hand, "you have a story of your own to tell me before we go on the quest for your mother. ”

“ But the truth is that monsieur only invented that tale of testing you because he was frightened when he found he had tackled an honest girl, and he did not wish for the madam to get hold of it."
"Then he is a wicked villain, and I shall go away to-day," cried the girl, indignantly, "I love little Ruby, but I will go away, I cannot remain."
"If you take my advice you will stay and say nothing about it," replied the maid. "If you go to another place you are just as likely to encounter the same difficulty. You are too pretty to be a servant. ”

“ The round, white arms were thrown carelessly up above her head, the wealth of curling, golden hair, strayed in rich confusion over the pillow; the golden-brown lashes lay softly on the rosy, dimpled cheeks; the lips were smiling as if some happy dream stirred the white breast that rose and fell so softly over the innocent heart.
"Ghost or human?" Bertram Chesleigh asked himself, as he gazed in astonishment and ecstacy at the beautiful, unconscious sleeper. ”

“ Bertram Chesleigh's repentant soul reeled in agony before it.
"I am justly punished for my cowardly desertion of my darling," he groaned to his sister, to whom he had confided his sorrowful secret. "But, oh, God! how terribly I have suffered for the weakness and folly of an hour!"
Edith, whose heart had been strangely changed and softened since her reconciliation with her husband, wept with him over the dreadful news.
"Bertram, we must go to her," she said. "In death, if not in life, we must lift the shadow from the poor girl's memory. Elinor Glenalvan is going home to-day. ”

“ The housekeeper came, and declared, in a fright at first, that the girl was dead. Then she turned Mr. Leith out of the room, loosened Golden's clothing, and rubbed her vigorously.
In about ten minutes the quiet eyelids fluttered faintly, and a gasping sigh parted the white lips.
The housekeeper beckoned Mrs. Leith to her side.
"She lives," she whispered, softly, "but she had better have died."
"I do not understand you," Mrs. Leith replied.
"I have made a discovery," continued the old housekeeper. "The girl has deceived you, madam. She is a bad lot, for all her sweet, childish, innocent face." ”

“ Leith raised her companion's veil.
All started and uttered a cry of incredulous surprise.
Little Golden's daughter, pallid, beautiful, tearful, was standing there, looking at them across her mother's coffin.
"Thank God!" she said, in her sweet, clear voice, with a sound of tears in its sweetness. "Thank God, my mother was pure and innocent! The dream of my life-time is fulfilled at last."
"Does the grave give up its dead?" they cried, and Bertram Chesleigh went to her side and touched her white hand, half-fearfully. ”

“ But her tears fell heavily as she looked at the deathly white face laying on the pillow, and she wondered to herself if it would not be less hard for her to see him die then and there, than live to find his lost wife again.
"God forgive me for my weakness and selfishness," she cried, starting at her own thoughts. "May he live to find the happiness of which he has been cheated so long."
The long, weary night, filled with mortal agony to poor little Golden, slowly wore away.
At the earliest peep of dawn a messenger arrived from the town with a telegram for Mr. Leith. ”

“ Nearly two weeks after the night of her rencontre with Mr. Chesleigh, old Dinah awoke suddenly "in the dead waste and middle of the night," seized in the relentless grip of her old enemy, the rheumatism.
She rolled herself out of her quilt and sat upright, groaning dolorously, and rubbing her knees in which the pain had settled.
"Oh, Lordy! oh, Lordy!" she groaned, "how my ole bones does ache! Miss Golden! Miss Golden! my precious lam', wake up, and bid your ole brack mammy a las' far'well. I'm a-dyin', sartin, shuah!"
But Golden, usually a very light sleeper, made no reply. ”