She knelt down on the banks of the tranquil little lake she had always loved so dearly, and clasped her little hands and lifted her white face in the bright moonlight.
"Farewell, little lake," she murmured to the silvery, tranquil sheet of water. "I pray God that the time may come when I shall kneel by you again, and tell you that I have reclaimed my erring mother, and that her soul has been washed as pure and free from sin as the lilies sleeping on your breast."
Was it only little Golden's excited fancy, or did a shadow, soft and impalpable as a mist wreath, and pale as the moonbeams, glide across the still water in the form of a woman, and a voice as soft and low as the sigh of the breeze murmur sadly:
"Bless you, my daughter."
She started and looked around; the voice and vision had been so real she could hardly imagine it fancy, but the phantom shape had dissolved into moonbeams again, and the voice had melted into music on the "homeless winds."
"If my poor mother was dead I should believe that her spirit had blessed me," said the beautiful girl to herself. "But she is alive, so it could not have been she, perhaps it was my guardian angel."
She plucked a beautiful, large, white lily from the lake and started on her way to the railway station, carrying the spotless flower in her hand.
Perhaps some thought of the poet, Longfellow's, verses came to her mind:
"Bear a lily in thine hand,
Gates of brass cannot withstand
One touch of that magic wand,
Bear through sorrow, wrong and ruth,
On thy lips the smile of truth,
In thy heart the dew of youth."