Putting out his hand he drew her down upon the leaves; and she sat beside
him, still and happy, ready to answer him when he asked her this or that,
readier yet to sit in blissful, dreamy silence. She was as pure as the
flower which she held in her hand, and most innocent in her imaginings.
This was a very perfect knight, a great gentleman, good and pitiful, that
had saved her from the Indians when she was a little girl, and had been
kind to her,--ah, so kind! In that dreadful night when she had lost father
and mother and brother and sister, when in the darkness her childish heart
was a stone for terror, he had come, like God, from the mountains, and
straightway she was safe. Now into her woods, from over the sea, he had
come again, and at once the load upon her heart, the dull longing and
misery, the fear of Hugon, were lifted. The chaplet which she laid at his
feet was not loosely woven of gay-colored flowers, but was compact of
austerer blooms of gratitude, reverence, and that love which is only a
longing to serve. The glamour was at hand, the enchanted light which
breaks not from the east or the west or the north or the south was upon
its way; but she knew it not, and she was happy in her ignorance.
"I am tired of the city," he said. "Now I shall stay in Virginia. A
longing for the river and the marshes and the house where I was born came
upon me"-"I know," she answered. "When I shut my eyes I see the cabin in the
valley, and when I dream it is of things which happen in a mountainous
country."
"I am alone in the great house," he continued, "and the floors echo
somewhat loudly. The garden, too; beside myself there is no one to smell
the roses or to walk in the moonlight. I had forgotten the isolation of
these great plantations. Each is a province and a despotism. If the despot
has neither kith nor kin, has not yet made friends, and cares not to draw
company from the quarters, he is lonely. They say that there are ladies in
Virginia whose charms well-nigh outweigh their dowries of sweet-scented
and Oronoko. I will wed such an one, and have laughter in my garden, and
other footsteps than my own in my house."
"There are beautiful ladies in these parts," said Audrey. "There is the
one that gave me the guinea for my running yesterday. She was so very
fair. I wished with all my heart that I were like her."