Dinah seized upon the garment and shook it vigorously, as if she expected to see the slight form of her young mistress drop from its folds to the floor.
"Um—me-e-e," she groaned, "has de sperets carried de chile off?"
She glanced up at the row of pegs where she had hung Golden's few articles of apparel. Her best dress—a dark-blue cashmere—was gone, also her hat and a summer jacket.
"She hab runned away from us," old Dinah exclaimed, with almost a howl of despair.
The thought inspired her with such grief and terror that she forgot her ailment entirely. She hobbled out from the room and made her way down stairs to her master's apartment and burst into his presence—a ludicrous object indeed in her striped cotton bed-gown.
Old Hugh Glenalvan, late as it was, had not retired to bed. Wrapped in an old wadded dressing-gown he sat in an easy-chair before an old, carved oaken cabinet.
One quaint little drawer was open, and the white-haired old man was poring over some simple treasures he had taken from it—simple treasures, yet dearer to his heart than gold or precious stones—a few old photographs, an old-fashioned ambrotype in an ebony case, a thin, gold ring and some locks of hair.
Upon this sad and touching picture of memory and tenderness old Dinah's grotesque figure broke startlingly.
"Ole massa! ole massa!" she cried, wildly, "has you seen little missie? Is she here with you?"
The old man swept his treasures off his knees into the quaint cabinet and looked at his old servant in amazement.