"Come, dearie, won't you promise?" said Dinah. "I knows what's for your good better dan you does yourself, chile."
"Must I promise it, indeed?" sighed the innocent child, lifting her flushed face from the pillow a moment to fix her big, blue, imploring eyes on the old woman's obdurate face.
"Yes, you must sartainly promise it," was the uncompromising reply.
There was silence for a moment, and Dinah saw the tears come into the sweet, blue eyes.
"Honey, chile, does you promise me?" she inquired, only confirmed in the opinion by this demonstration.
"Yes, I promise not to speak to him unless you give me leave, black mammy," replied Golden, with quivering lips.
"That's right, darling. Mammy can depend on your word. Lie down, and go to sleep, honey, and I'll fetch my pallet in yere, and sleep on de flo' by your bedside, so that no one kin 'trude on you ag'in."
The girl laid her fair head silently on the pillow, and Dinah threw down a quilt on the floor and rolled herself in it. She was soon snoring profoundly.
Not so with beautiful Golden. It was quite impossible for her to sleep again. She shut her eyelids resolutely, but the busy, beautiful brain was too active to admit of her losing consciousness again. She lay thinking of the splendid, dark-eyed stranger.