"Black mammy, I have been thinking," she said, "and I will tell you what I mean to do."
"What, honey?"
"I will tell you a secret, mammy. Mr. Chesleigh loves me. We are—that is, I will be his wife one of these days."
"Miss Golden, is dat so?" cried black mammy, delighted. "I am so glad! I was 'fraid—well, nebber min' what I was 'fraid of, chile; but 'deed I is so glad dat Mr. Chesly's gwine to marry you. He is a rich man, honey. You kin snap your lily fingers at ugly Marse John, when once you is Mr. Chesly's wife."
"Yes, he is very rich, black mammy," said the girl, with a pretty, almost childish complacency. "He has told me so, and he tells me I shall have jewels and fine dresses, and all that heart could desire when I go to live with him—I mean," blushing rosy red, "when I become his wife."
"And powerful pretty you will look in dem fine tings, honey," said her black mammy, admiringly.
"But the best thing of all, black mammy, is that I shall be able to take grandpa away from this place, and love him and care for him," cried Golden, exultantly. "I shall take you, too, mammy, for you have been the only mother I ever knew. Grandpa shall have the happiest home in the world, and Bert and I will both love him dearly, dearly!"
"And your pore, lost mudder, darlin', you had forgotten her," said Dinah, a little wistfully, her thoughts straying back through the mist of years, to the lost little nursling who had fluttered from the safe parental nest, and steeped the white wings of her soul in the blackness of sin.
But Golden shook her dainty head decidedly.
"No, black mammy, I had not forgotten," she said. "When I am Bert's wife, he shall help me to seek and save my poor, lost mother. We will try to win her back to the path of right, and save her soul for Heaven," she concluded, with girlish ardor and fervency.