"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. But my father weakly insisted on rearing her himself, and I was injudicious enough to permit it. The only stipulation I made was that she should be kept away from the sight of the world as much as possible. I see now that all precautions were useless. Young as she is, the bad blood in her veins begins to show itself already in depraved conduct." "Hush! do not censure her harmless meetings with me," said Bertram Chesleigh, in a voice of agony. "The child is so pure and innocent she has no idea of evil. I would die before I would wrong her!" "I am glad to hear you say so," said the other. "If you really mean it, perhaps you will agree to relinquish your useless pursuit of her. You would not be willing to marry her after what you have heard, I am quite sure." * * * * * Meantime little Golden walked away with her grandfather, who stumbled along like one in a painful dream, his gray head bowed as if beneath the weight of sorrow, his footsteps faltering and slow. He had not spoken one word, and his silence impressed Golden with a sense of her wrong-doing and disobedience far more than the loudest reproaches could have done. She clung to his hand, weeping and sighing, and shivering silently at old Dinah's muttered invectives against Mr. Chesleigh. Hugh Glenalvan spoke no words to his granddaughter until he had led her into the house. Then he sank into his chair, and his gray head drooped upon his breast. Surprise and sorrow seemed to have deprived him of the power of speech. Golden knelt at his feet and laid her golden head upon his knee. "Grandpa, speak to me," she wailed. "Do not be angry with your little Golden! Oh, grandpa, you have been so hard and strict with me; you have kept me too secluded. If you had let me have freedom and happiness like other girls, this never would have happened!" "Hush, little missie; you must not speak to ole massa like dat," cried Dinah, trying to pull her away. "You don't know what you talkin' 'bout. Come away till ole massa is well enough to talk to you 'bout dis fing." She lifted the girl and would have led her away, but the old man waved his hand feebly to detain her, and so she placed her in a chair instead. Then she brought a glass of wine and poured a little between the white, writhing lips of her old master. "Grandpa, speak to me!" wailed Golden again. Old Dinah looked at her almost sternly, and said abruptly: "You must let him alone, Miss Golden, you have enamost kilt him now, with your badness and deceit." "Black mammy, you shall not speak to me so," cried the girl, resentfully, and then the bright head drooped on the arm of the chair, and she wept bitterly, more from fright at the condition of her grandfather, than from any tangible sense of her own wrong-doing.