"I hasn't the leastest idea," said busy Dinah, "but ole massa is too feeble to walk very fur." Golden turned away silently, and went to her grandfather's nook in the bay-window to await his return. She was burning with impatience to tell him the cruel and unkind things her cousins had said to her, and to ask if they were true. She sat down in the old arm-chair, among the blossoming flowers, herself the fairest flower of all, and leaning her dimpled cheek on her hand, relapsed into troubled thought. The strange relations sustained by her grandfather and herself toward his son's family puzzled her as it had often done before. Living in the same house, and nearly related as they were, there was little or no intercourse between the two families and they were barely friendly. Ever since Golden could remember, it had been so. She had questioned her grandfather and she had questioned Dinah, but they gave her no satisfaction on the subject. It remained a pregnant mystery to the lonely child, living her thoughtless, girlish life in the ruined rooms of the western wing, and in the tangled gardens, and the wild, green wood. A brief time of impatient waiting, then Golden heard the murmur of voices beneath the window. She leaned her curly head out, and heard one sentence spoken in the clear, curt voice of John Glenalvan: "You understand now, father, how important it is to us that you should keep Golden's daughter more carefully secluded?" "The child will fret--she has been so used to an outdoor life, it will injure her health," feebly objected the old man. "Her health is the poorest objection you could urge with me," said John Glenalvan, cruelly. "If she had died long ago it would have been the very best thing that could have happened for us all." The father's reply was lost in the distance as they passed on. They came in at the front door, passed down the long corridor, and separated to their divided abodes. Golden's grandfather came heavily into the quiet sitting-room, leaning on his oaken cane, and sought his favorite chair at the sunny window where the flowers bloomed and the bright-winged butterflies hovered. He was not prepared to see Golden start up from the chair with a white face, and wild, frightened, blue eyes. She clutched his arms and leaned against him. He felt her frightened heart-beats plainly. "Oh, grandpa, grandpa," she wailed, "what is the matter with everyone? What have I done that some wish me dead and others are sorry that ever I was born?" She felt the tremulous lips of the old man pressed fondly on her drooping head, she heard a sorrowful murmur: "Poor little Golden's daughter," then he said aloud: "My darling, who has been saying such cruel things to you?"