"Have you any recommendations?" "Not as a maid, as the occupation is new to me. I have been a nurse heretofore, but if you will try me I will do my best to please you," said Golden, anxiously. "I am very hard to please," said Mrs. Leith. She did not tell Golden that she was so very hard to please that no one could suit her, leaving her to find that out for herself, as she would be sure to do if she remained. There was a moment's silence, and Golden gravely regarded Mrs. Leith. She was _petite_ and graceful in form, with large, blue eyes, waving masses of golden hair, and beautifully-moulded features. She was barely thirty years old in appearance, and was richly and becomingly attired. 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. My last one was so incapable I had to discharge her. You may do my hair for me now. I am going to drive in the park with Mr. Leith, if his troublesome clients do not detain him. My husband is a lawyer, Mary, and his time is almost wholly engrossed by his business." "Her husband," Golden repeated to herself, as she wound the shining tresses into braids. "So they keep up that farce before the world. Poor mother! how she must love my father to remain with him on such humiliating terms. Is she really happy, or does she only wear a mask?" But there was no apparent sorrow or remorse on the complacent face of the lady as she gave her orders and directions to the new maid. The uppermost thought in her mind was how to make the most of her beauty. Golden had to arrange her hair twice before she was suited, and she tried several dresses in turn before she decided on one. She was inordinately vain and fond of finery, and Golden thought pitifully to herself: "Her beauty is the only hold she has on my father, and she is compelled to make its preservation the sole aim of her life." She wondered a little that no yearning throb had stirred her heart at the sight of her beautiful mother, but she told herself that it was simply because her mother's sin had wholly alienated the natural affection of her purer-hearted daughter. She pitied her with a great, yearning pity, but no impulse prompted her to kiss the dewy, crimson lips, she had no temptation to pillow her head on the fair bosom that had denied its shelter and sustenance to her helpless infancy. Mrs. Leith did not look as if she would have made a tender mother.