"May the good Lawd help you to succeed, my innercent lamb," said the good old black woman, prayerfully. "Her little soul was too white and tender for de brack debbil to git it at de last for his brack dominions."
There was a sudden tap at the door. Golden looked at it eagerly and expectantly, while Dinah threw it open.
A small black boy, a servant of John Glenalvan, stood outside with a sealed letter in his hand.
"For Missie Golden, from Mass Chesleigh," he said, putting it in Dinah's hand, and quickly retiring.
Dinah carried it silently to her mistress, who kissed the superscription, and eagerly tore it open.
The thick, satin-smooth sheet rustled in the trembling little hand as the blue eyes ran over it, lovingly and eagerly.
As she read, the tender, loving eyes grew wild and startled, an ashen shade crept around the rosebud lips, the young face whitened to the corpse-like hue of death. She crumpled the sheet in her hand at last, and threw it wildly from her, while a cry of intolerable anguish thrilled over her white lips.
"Oh, mammy, mammy, my heart is broken—broken! I shall never see him again. He has forsaken me for my mother's sin!"
Then she fell back cold and rigid, like one dead upon the bed. Dinah flew to her assistance, cursing in her heart the wickedness and heartlessness of men.