Audrey

Her father--alert, vivacious, handsome, with finely cut lips that were

quick to smile, and dark eyes that smiled when the lips were

still--followed her to the earth, shook out his ruffles, and extended his

gold snuffbox to his good friend Mr. Jaquelin. The gentleman who had

ridden beside the coach threw the reins of his horse to one of the negroes

who had come running from the Jaquelin stables, and, together with their

host, the three walked across the strip of grass to the row of expectant

gentry. Down went the town-bred lady until the skirt of her blue-green

gown lay in folds upon the buttercups; down went the ladies opposite in

curtsies as profound, if less exquisitely graceful. Off came the hats of

the gentlemen; the bows were of the lowest; snuffboxes were drawn out,

handkerchiefs of fine holland flourished; the welcoming speeches were

hearty and not unpolished.

It was a society less provincial than that of more than one shire that was

nearer to London by a thousand leagues. It dwelt upon the banks of the

Chesapeake and of great rivers; ships dropped their anchors before its

very doors. Now and again the planter followed his tobacco aboard. The

sands did not then run so swiftly through the hourglass; if the voyage to

England was long, why, so was life! The planters went, sold their

tobacco,--Sweet-scented, E. Dees, Oronoko, Cowpen, Non-burning,--talked

with their agents, visited their English kindred; saw the town, the opera,

and the play,--perhaps, afar off, the King; and returned to Virginia and

their plantations with the last but one novelty in ideas, manner, and

dress. Of their sons not a few were educated in English schools, while

their wives and daughters, if for the most part they saw the enchanted

ground only through the eyes of husband, father, or brother, yet followed

its fashions, when learned, with religious zeal. In Williamsburgh, where

all men went on occasion, there was polite enough living: there were the

college, the Capitol, and the playhouse; the palace was a toy St. James;

the Governors that came and went almost as proper gentlemen, fitted to

rule over English people, as if they had been born in Hanover and could

not speak their subjects' tongue.

So it was that the assembly which had risen to greet Mr. Jaquelin's latest

guests, besides being sufficiently well born, was not at all ill bred, nor

uninformed, nor untraveled. But it was not of the gay world as were the

three whom it welcomed. It had spent only months, not years, in England;

it had never kissed the King's hand; it did not know Bath nor the Wells;

it was innocent of drums and routs and masquerades; had not even a

speaking acquaintance with great lords and ladies; had never supped with

Pope, or been grimly smiled upon by the Dean of St. Patrick's, or courted

by the Earl of Peterborough. It had not, like the elder of the two men,

studied in the Low Countries, visited the Court of France, and contracted

friendships with men of illustrious names; nor, like the younger, had it

written a play that ran for two weeks, fought a duel in the Field of Forty

Footsteps, and lost and won at the Cocoa Tree, between the lighting and

snuffing of the candles, three thousand pounds.