Audrey

The minister had lost his gravity, and spoke with warmth and bitterness.

As he paused for breath, Mistress Evelyn took her eyes from the group of

those about to run and opened her fan. "A careless father, at least," she

said. "If he hath learning, he should know better than to set his daughter

there."

"She's not his own, ma'am. She's an orphan, bound to Darden and his wife,

I suppose. There's some story or other about her, but, not being curious

in Mr. Darden's affairs, I have never learned it. When I came to

Virginia, five years ago, she was a slip of a girl of thirteen or so.

Once, when I had occasion to visit Darden, she waylaid me in the road as I

was riding away, and asked me how far it was to the mountains, and if

there were Indians between them and us."

"Did she so?" asked Haward. "And which is--Audrey?"

"The dark one--brown as a gypsy--with the dogwood in her hair. And mark

me, there'll be Darden's own luck and she'll win. She's fleeter than a

greyhound. I've seen her running in and out and to and fro in the forest

like a wild thing."

Bare of foot and slender ankle, bare of arm and shoulder, with heaving

bosom, shut lips, and steady eyes, each of the six runners awaited the

trumpet sound that should send her forth like an arrow to the goal, and to

the shining guinea that lay thereby. The spectators ceased to talk and

laugh, and bent forward, watching. Wagers had been laid, and each man kept

his eyes upon his favorite, measuring her chances. The trumpet blew, and

the race was on.

When it was over and won, the May Queen rose from her seat and crossed the

grass to her fine lady guest. "There are left only the prizes for this and

for the boys' race and for the best dancer. Will you not give them,

Mistress Evelyn, and so make them of more value?"

More curtsying, more complimenting, and the gold was in Evelyn's white

hand. The trumpet blew, the drum beat, the fiddlers swung into a quick,

staccato air, and Darden's Audrey, leaving the post which she had touched

some seconds in advance of the foremost of those with whom she had raced,

came forward to receive the guinea.

The straight, short skirt of dull blue linen could not hide the lines of

the young limbs; beneath the thin, white, sleeveless bodice showed the

tint of the flesh, the rise and fall of the bosom. The bare feet trod the

grass lightly and firmly; the brown eyes looked from under the dogwood

chaplet in a gaze that was serious, innocent, and unashamed. To Audrey

they were only people out of a fairy tale,--all those gay folk, dressed in

silks and with curled hair. They lived in "great houses," and men and

women were born to till their fields, to row their boats, to doff hats or

curtsy as they passed. They were not real; if you pricked them they would

not bleed. In the mountains that she remembered as a dream there were pale

masses of bloom far up among the cliffs; very beautiful, but no more to be

gained than the moon or than rainbow gold. She looked at the May party

before which she had been called much as, when a child, she had looked at

the gorgeous, distant bloom,--not without longing, perhaps, but

indifferent, too, knowing that it was beyond her reach.