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

Beautiful Golden Glenalvan stood by the willow-bordered lake and looked into its azure depths with a dreamy light in her pansy-blue eyes.

She had been singing as she danced along the sunny path, but the sweet song died on the coral lips as she came to the little lake with its green fringe of willows and the white lilies sleeping on its breast.

The wind as it sighed through the trees, and the low, soft ripple of the water, always sounded sad to Golden.

It seemed to her vivid fancy that the wind and the waves were trying to tell her some sad story in a language she could not understand.

She was unconsciously saddened whenever she came to its banks and listened to the low, soft murmur.

It had a tragic story to tell her, indeed, but its language was too mysterious for her to understand. Some day she would know.

The afternoon sunshine threw the long, slanting shadows of old Glenalvan Hall far across the level greensward almost to the border of the lake.

It had once been a fine and stately mansion, picturesque and pretentious, with many peaks and gables and oriel windows. But its ancient glory had long departed.

It seemed little more than a picturesque, ivy-covered ruin now. But there still remained in one wing a few habitable apartments that were fine and large, and lofty.

Here the last of the Glenalvans—once a proud and wealthy race—dwelt in respectable, shabby-genteel poverty.

But poverty did not seem to have hurt lovely little Golden Glenalvan.

She had a wealth of beauty, and a happy heart that made her seem like a gleam of sunshine in the home she brightened. She was a careless, willful child not yet sixteen.

The plain, simple, blue gingham dress was worn quite short, yet, the beautiful, golden tresses fell to her waist in long, loose, childish ringlets.

Free and careless as the birds, she roamed at will through the wild, neglected park and the green woods that lay around her ancestral home.

The dwellers in Glenalvan Hall were divided into two families. In the best and most habitable part, John Glenalvan lived with his wife and family, consisting of two daughters and a son. In a few battered rooms in the tumble-down wing, John Glenalvan's father, an old and hoary-headed man, kept house with his pretty little granddaughter, Golden, and one old black servant called Dinah.

We have digressed a little from Golden as she stands beside the lake, swinging her wide, straw hat by its blue ribbons. Let us return.

The little maiden is communing with herself. Quite unconsciously she speaks her thoughts aloud:

"Old Dinah says that Elinor and Clare will give a little party to-night in honor of their brother's wealthy friend, who is to come on a visit to him to-day. How I wish they would invite me. I should like to go."

"Should you now, really?" said a slightly sarcastic voice close to her.

She looked up, and saw her cousin, Elinor coming along the path toward her.

Elinor Glenalvan was a tall and queenly beauty of the most pronounced brunette type. She had large, black eyes that sparkled like diamonds, and glossy, black hair braided into a coronet on the top of her haughty head.

Her features were well-cut and regular, her skin a clear olive, her cheeks and lips were a rich, glowing crimson. She was twenty-one years old, and her sister Clare, who walked by her side, was nineteen.

Clare Glenalvan was a weak, vain, pretty girl, but with no such decided claim to beauty as Elinor. Her hair and eyes were not as dark as her sister's, her cheeks and lips were less rosy. She had a mincing, affected air, but was considered stylish and elegant.

Both girls were attired in the best their father could afford from his very limited income, and their little cousin's simple blue gingham looked plain indeed by contrast with their cool, polka-dotted lawns, and lace ruffles.

Elinor carried a small basket on her arm. They had come to the lake for water-lilies to decorate the rooms for the party of which they had caught Golden talking aloud.

The little girl blushed at her dilemma a moment, then she faced the occasion bravely.

"I did not know that you could hear me, Elinor," she said, lifting her beautiful, frank, blue eyes to her cousin's face, "but it is true. I should like to come to your party. You have invited grandpa's old servant to come and help with the supper, and she will go. Why do you not ask grandpa and me?"

"Grandpa is too old to come, and you are too young," replied Elinor, with a careless, flippant laugh, while Clare stared at Golden, and murmured audibly:

"The bold, little thing."

Golden revolved her cousin's reply a moment in her mind.

"Well, perhaps he is too old," she said, with a little sigh, "and yet I think he might enjoy seeing the young people amusing themselves. But as for me, Elinor, I know I am not too young! Minnie Edwards is coming, I have heard, and she is a month younger than I am! The only difference is that she puts up her hair, and wears long dresses. I would wear long dresses, too, only I do not believe grandpa could afford it. It would take several yards more for a trail, or even to touch all around."

Clare and Elinor laughed heartlessly at the wistful calculation of the difference between short and long dresses. Then the elder sister said, abruptly:

"It is a great pity grandpa cannot keep you a little girl in short dresses forever, Golden! You will not find it very pleasant to be a woman."

"Why not?" said innocent Golden. "Are not women happy?"

"Some are," said Elinor, "but I do not think you will ever be."

"Why not?" asked the girl again.

The two sisters exchanged significant glances that did not escape Golden's keen eyes.

"Elinor, why do you and Clare look at each other so hatefully?" she cried out in sudden resentment and childish passion. "What is the matter? What have I done?"

"You have done nothing except to be born," said Clare Glenalvan, irritably, "and under the circumstances, that is the worst thing you could have done."

Was it only the fancy of beautiful Golden, or did the wind in the trees and grasses sigh mournfully, and the blue waves go lapsing past with a sadder tone?

"Clare, I don't know what you mean," she cried, half-angrily. "I never harmed anyone in my life! I have not hurt anyone by being born, have I?"

The sisters looked at the beautiful, half-defiant face with its rose flushed cheeks and flashing, violet eyes, and Elinor sneered rudely, while Clare answered in a sharp, complaining voice:

"Yes, you have hurt every soul that bears the name of Glenalvan—the dead Glenalvans as well as the living ones. You are a living disgrace to the proud, old name that your mother was the first to disgrace!"

Then she paused, a little frightened, for Golden had started so violently that she had almost fallen backward into the lake.

She steadied herself by catching the branch of a bending willow, and looked at her cousin with death-white lips and cheeks, and scornful eyes.

"Clare, you are a cruel, wicked girl," she cried. "I will go and tell grandpa what terrible things you have said of me! I did not believe one word!"

The tears of wounded pride were streaming down her cheeks as she sped along the path and across the green lawn up to the old hall. The sisters looked at each other, a little disconcerted.

"Clare, you were too hasty," said Elinor, uneasily. "Grandpa will be very angry."

Little Golden sped across the green lawn, her young heart full of pain and anger at the cruel words her cousins had spoken to her.

Flying through the long, dark corridor of the old hall, and passing through several lofty and empty old rooms, she emerged at last in the sunny bay-window where her grandfather dozed daily, surrounded by pots of fragrant roses and geraniums.