Audrey

A rotted log, streaked with velvet moss and blotched with fan-shaped,

orange-colored fungi, lay by the wayside, and the two sat down upon it to

wait for the coming horseman. Overhead the thunder was rolling, but there

was as yet no breath of wind, no splash of raindrops. Opposite them rose a

gigantic pine, towering above the forest, red-brown trunk and ultimate

cone of deep green foliage alike outlined against the dead gloom of the

sky. Audrey shook back her heavy hair and raised her face to the roof of

the world; her hands were clasped upon her knee; her bare feet, slim and

brown, rested on a carpet of moss; she was as still as the forest, of

which, to the Highlander, she suddenly seemed a part. When they had kept

silence for what seemed a long time, he spoke to her with some hesitation:

"You have known Mr. Haward but a short while; the months are very few

since he came from England."

The name brought Audrey down to earth again. "Did you not know?" she asked

wonderingly. "You also are his friend,--you see him often. I thought that

at times he would have spoken of me." For a moment her face was troubled,

though only for a moment. "But I know why he did not so," she said softly

to herself. "He is not one to speak of his good deeds." She turned toward

MacLean, who was attentively watching her, "But I may speak of them," she

said, with pride. "I have known Mr. Haward for years and years. He saved

my life; he brought me here from the Indian country; he was, he is, so

kind to me!"

Since the afternoon beneath the willow-tree, Haward, while encouraging her

to speak of her long past, her sylvan childhood, her dream memories, had

somewhat sternly checked every expression of gratitude for the part which

he himself had played or was playing, in the drama of her life. Walking in

the minister's orchard, sitting in the garden or upon the terrace of Fair

View house, drifting on the sunset river, he waved that aside, and went on

to teach her another lesson. The teaching was exquisite; but when the

lesson for the day was over, and he was alone, he sat with one whom he

despised. The learning was exquisite; it was the sweetest song, but she

knew not its name, and the words were in a strange tongue. She was

Audrey, that she knew; and he,--he was the plumed knight, who, for the

lack of a better listener, told her gracious tales of love, showed her how

warm and beautiful was this world that she sometimes thought so sad, sang

to her sweet lines that poets had made. Over and through all she thought

she read the name of the princess. She had heard him say that with the

breaking of the heat he should go to Westover, and one day, early in

summer, he had shown her the miniature of Evelyn Byrd.