"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. Many and many a time she had chafed at the narrowness and loneliness of her lot, but she had never known sorrow until to-day. Its horrible reality crushed her down before its pitiless strength like the fury of the storm-rain. A crushed and bleeding victim, she lay weak and stunned in its victorious path. At nightfall she slept, wearied out by the force and violence of her deep, overmastering emotion. Old Dinah persuaded her weary, haggard old master to retire to his room and bed, promising to watch faithfully herself by the sick girl. She dozed until midnight, when, as Golden still slept on heavily, she permitted herself to take a wary nap in an old arm-chair. It was daylight when the weary, suffering old creature awoke. The beautiful Golden was gone. A little three-cornered note lay on the pillow that still held the impress of the dear little head. The child had written sorrowfully to her grandfather: