Audrey

Her eyes were as brilliant as Haward's that shone with fever; a smile

stayed upon her lips; she moved with dignity through the stately dance,

scarce erring once, graceful and fine in all that she did. Haward,

enamored, his wits afire, went mechanically through the oft-trod measure,

and swore to himself that he held in his hand the pearl of price, the

nonpareil of earth. In this dance and under cover of the music they could

speak to each other unheard of those about them.

"'Queen of all the fairies,' did he call you?" he asked. "That was well

said. When we are at Fair View again, thou must show me where thou wonnest

with thy court, in what moonlit haunt, by what cool stream"-"I would I were this night at Fair View glebe house," said Audrey. "I

would I were at home in the mountains."

Her voice, sunken with pain and longing, was for him alone. To the other

dancers, to the crowded room at large, she seemed a brazen girl, with

beauty to make a goddess, wit to mask as a great lady, effrontery to

match that of the gentleman who had brought her here. The age was free,

and in that London which was dear to the hearts of the Virginians ladies

of damaged reputation were not so unusual a feature of fashionable

entertainments as to receive any especial notice. But Williamsburgh was

not London, and the dancer yonder, who held her rose-crowned head so high,

was no lady of fashion. They knew her now for that dweller at Fair View

gates of whom, during the summer just past, there had been whispering

enough. Evidently, it was not for naught that Mr. Marmaduke Haward had

refused invitations, given no entertainments, shut himself up at Fair

View, slighting old friends and evincing no desire to make new ones. Why,

the girl was a servant,--nothing more nor less; she belonged to Gideon

Darden, the drunken minister; she was to have married Jean Hugon, the

half-breed trader. Look how the Governor, enlightened at last, glowered at

her; and how red was Colonel Spotswood's face; and how Mistress Evelyn

Byrd, sitting in the midst of a little court of her own, made witty talk,

smiled upon her circle of adorers, and never glanced toward the centre of

the room, and the dancers there!

"You are so sweet and gay to-night," said Haward to Audrey. "Take your

pleasure, child, for it is a sad world, and the blight will fall. I love

to see you happy."

"Happy!" she answered. "I am not happy!"

"You are above them all in beauty," he went on. "There is not one here

that's fit to tie your shoe."

"Oh me!" cried Audrey. "There is the lady that you love, and that loves

you. Why did she look at me so, in the hall yonder? And yesterday, when

she came to Mistress Stagg's, I might not touch her or speak to her! You

told me that she was kind and good and pitiful. I dreamed that she might

let me serve her when she came to Fair View."