Audrey

The remembered horror of her dream contending with present bliss shook her

spirit to its centre. She shuddered violently, then burst into a passion

of tears.

Haward's touch upon her hair, Haward's voice in her ear, all the old terms

of endearment for a frightened child,--"little maid," "little coward,"

"Why, sweetheart, these things are shadows, they cannot hurt thee!" She

controlled her tears, and was the happier for her weeping. It was sweet to

sit there in the lush grass, veiled and shadowed from the world by the

willow's drooping green, and in that soft and happy light to listen to his

voice, half laughing, half chiding, wholly tender and caressing. Dreams

were naught, he said. Had Hugon troubled her waking hours?

He had come once to the house, it appeared; but she had run away and

hidden in the wood, and the minister had told him she was gone to the

Widow Constance's. That was a long time ago; it must have been the day

after she and Mistress Deborah had last come from Fair View.

"A long time," said Haward. "It was a week ago. Has it seemed a long time,

Audrey?"

"Yes,--oh yes!"

"I have been busy. I must learn to be a planter, you know. But I have

thought of you, little maid."

Audrey was glad of that, but there was yet a weight upon her heart. "After

that dream I lay awake all night, and it came to me how wrongly I had

done. Hugon is a wicked man,--an Indian. Oh, I should never have told you,

that first day in the garden, that he was waiting for me outside! For now,

because you took care of me and would not let him come near, he hates you.

He is so wicked that he might do you a harm." Her eyes widened, and the

hand that touched his was cold and trembling. "If ever hurt came to you

through me, I would drown myself in the river yonder. And then I

thought--lying awake last night--that perhaps I had been troublesome to

you, those days at Fair View, and that was why you had not come to see the

minister, as you had said you would."

The dark eyes were pitifully eager;

the hand that went to her heart trembled more and more. "It is not as it

was in the mountains," she said. "I am older now, and safe, and--and

happy. And you have many things to do and to think of, and many

friends--gentlemen and beautiful ladies--to go to see. I thought--last

night--that when I saw you I would ask your pardon for not remembering

that the mountains were years ago; for troubling you with my matters, sir;

for making too free, forgetting my place"--Her voice sank; the shamed red

was in her cheeks, and her eyes, that she had bravely kept upon his face,

fell to the purple and gold blooms in her lap.