Alex. McVeigh Miller - Little Golden's Daughter; or, The Dream of a Life Time

The girl's quick temper flamed up at his harsh manner.

"I do not wish to deny it," she cried defiantly. "I did it, and I frightened all your fine company, too! I am very glad of it."

John Glenalvan sprang toward her with upraised hand as though he would strike her, but she stepped quickly out of his reach, and he said, with sullen rage:

"You hear the little Jezebel, father. Take care, take care that I do not put my long-pending threat into execution."

"John, she is but a playful child," he pleaded, pitifully. "She meant no harm, I am sure. Oh, Golden, my darling! why did you do it?"

"To spite the girls, grandpa, for their cruelty to me," she replied, "but I am very sorry now, since it has grieved you so. Believe me, grandpa, I did not think you would ever hear of it. Can you forgive me?" she pleaded, wistfully.

"You must ask your uncle's forgiveness, not mine, my dear," was the tremulous reply.

"I will not ask his pardon," she replied, stoutly, her blue eyes flashing, and the color flaming into her cheeks, "I am sorry to have displeased you, grandpa, dear, but I do not in the least care for anyone else whether they are offended or not."

"Where did you get the fine toggery you wore last night?" demanded John Glenalvan, his fingers tingling with the impulse to slap the fair, defiant face.

"That is no concern of yours," she replied, resentfully.

"Tell me, dear," whispered old Hugh, intent on preserving a semblance of peace if it were possible.

Golden threw open the door of the wardrobe and showed him the brocade, which looked very yellow and old in the clear light of day.

"She had a necklace of pearls around her neck," said John, in an artful aside to his father.

"Did you, Golden?" asked her grandfather.

Golden went to the little toilet-table and took up the costly necklace which John Glenalvan instantly snatched from her hand and placed in his pocket.

Golden looked at him, tearful, dismayed, and excessively angry.

"Give them back to me," she cried. "They are mine! I found them—indeed I did, grandpa. They had fallen through a hole in the pocket of the dress into the skirt lining. They are mine, and you shall give them back to me, Uncle John."

"I will show you whether I will or not," he replied. "The necklace belongs to me. Everything in the house belongs to me, as well as the estate itself. You only have a home on sufferance here. Take care that you do not lose that."

"Is it true, grandpa?" asked Golden, and the old man nodded sadly.

John Glenalvan took down the white brocade, and carried it away in a compact bundle under his arm.

"I shall take this away," he said, "to make sure that you do not play any more disgraceful tricks upon us. I depend upon you, father, to see that she keeps to this room, and behaves herself for the remainder of the week. If she does not, I emphatically assure you that you both will suffer through her willfulness and disobedience!"

"I will promise for her," said the old man, putting his hand over Golden's pouting and rebellious mouth. "She will not be naughty any more!"

"See that she keeps the promise," his son replied, sternly, as he turned away.

He went to Elinor's boudoir where he found his two daughters quarreling over Bertram Chesleigh.

"I tell you he admires me the most," exclaimed the elder girl, angrily, just as her father threw the necklace and the brocade into her lap, and said, triumphantly:

"Here is the finery the ghost wore, my dears. Divide it between you."

The brocade was thrown down in disgust, but a pitched battle ensued over the pearl necklace.

"I am the elder, and I am determined to have it," cried Elinor, resolutely.

"I shall have it myself, if I perish in the effort," retorted Clare.

A wordy war ensued, from which John Glenalvan, to whom it was nothing new, retreated in disgust.

The contest was ended at last by the handsome Elinor's boxing the ears of her sister, and taking possession of the spoil on the barbarous principle of "might is right."

"Did I dream the whole thing?" said Bertram Chesleigh to himself, "or was it, indeed, only a ghost that I kissed on the border of the lake? Do ghosts have warm, living flesh and blood, and balmy lips, and blushes that come and go, and delicious little tempers, and the power to thrill one's nerves with quivering darts of fire? Have I lost my heart to a phantom?"

He might well ask himself these questions. A day and night had gone since the Glenalvans had their little party, and so far he had been unable to learn anything at all concerning the beautiful girl whom all but himself believed to have been the ghost of the dead Erma Glenalvan.

As he had promised to keep little Golden's secret inviolate, he could of course make no opening inquiries, but his little, careless, artful speeches, and innocent inquiries all failed of effect.

He could learn nothing of the maid whose beauty and grace had literally carried his heart by storm. It seemed quite plain that she did not live in the house.

It was equally certain that she did not reside in the neighborhood, for his friend, young Fred Glenalvan, had often assured him that his father's family were the only living descendants of the once numerous race.

Mr. Chesleigh asked himself if there was indeed a mystery, or if he had been fooled by an elfish spirit from the world of shadows.

His heart and his reason answered in the negative. It was a human being, warm, breathing, living, whom he had clasped and kissed that night. His veins tingled with electric fire at the remembrance.

Alone in his room the second night after his rencontre with the ghost, Bertram Chesleigh walked up and down restlessly, half mad with himself that he should dwell so persistently on that one thought, yet finding it so dangerously sweet he would not willingly have forgotten it. It seemed to him that he had never really lived till now, when this romantic passion for the beautiful unknown fired his heart.

Elinor and Clare had been very much frightened at the appearance of the family ghost. They talked about it in low, awe-struck whispers.

When Bertram Chesleigh expressed a desire to visit the haunted suite of rooms they expressed themselves as horrified, and declared that the rooms of the hapless Erma had been walled up long years before, and that all the rooms of the western wing were in such a ruinous condition that it was exceedingly dangerous to venture there at all.

They declared that their father had engaged workmen to pull down the western wing on account of its precarious condition.

But singularly enough Bertram Chesleigh's thoughts were running on the haunted rooms almost continuously to-night. Everything connected with the Glenalvan ghost had a deep interest for him.

Some impulse impelled him to visit the western wing.

He knew that the wide hall on which his room door opened had a corridor leading from it into the ruined western wing of the hall.

Some impulse stronger than his will, some "spirit in his feet," tempted him forth under cover of the silence and the night to explore the dangerous region in the vague hope of finding some trace of the mysterious ghost of last night.

To have met her again he would have dared even more threatening dangers than the settling timbers and falling roof which Fred, and Clare and Elinor were unanimous in declaring menaced everyone who entered the decaying portion of the hall.

Softly shod in his velvet slippers, he opened the door and peered out into the long hall.

It was lighted by long windows at either end, through which the moonlight poured a flood of white radiance. Putting a convenient box of matches into the pocket of his dressing-gown, he sallied boldly forth.

Whether ghost or human, he longed to encounter the beautiful girl he loved again.