Audrey

"Ha, Jean Hugon!" he said pleasantly, touching with his thin white hand

the brown one of the trader. "I thought it had been my old scholar! Canst

say the belief and the Commandments yet, Jean? Yonder great fellow with

the ball is Meshawa,--Meshawa that was a little, little fellow when you

went away. All your other playmates are gone,--though you did not play

much, Jean, but gloomed and gloomed because you must stay this side of the

meadow with your own color. Will you not cross the fence and sit awhile

with your old master?"

As he spoke he regarded with a humorous smile the dusty glories of his

sometime pupil, and when he had come to an end he turned and made as if to

beckon to the Indian with the ball. But Hugon drew his hand away,

straightened himself, and set his face like a flint toward the town. "I am

sorry, I have no time to-day," he said stiffly. "My friend and I have

business in town with men of my own color. My color is white. I do not

want to see Meshawa or the others. I have forgotten them."

He turned away, but a thought striking him his face brightened, and

plunging his hand into his pocket he again brought forth his glittering

store. "Nowadays I have money," he said grandly. "It used to be that

Indian braves brought Meshawa and the others presents, because they were

the sons of their great men. I was the son of a great man, too; but he was

not Indian and he was lying in his grave, and no one brought me gifts. Now

I wish to give presents. Here are ten coins, master. Give one to each

Indian boy, the largest to Meshawa."

The Indian teacher, Charles Griffin by name, looked with a whimsical face

at the silver pieces laid arow upon the top rail. "Very well, Jean," he

said. "It is good to give of thy substance. Meshawa and the others will

have a feast. Yes, I will remember to tell them to whom they owe it.

Good-day to you both."

The meadow, the solemnly playing Indians, and their gentle teacher were

left behind, and the two men, passing the long college all astare with

windows, the Indian school, and an expanse of grass starred with

buttercups, came into Duke of Gloucester Street. Broad, unpaved, deep in

dust, shaded upon its ragged edges by mulberries and poplars, it ran

without shadow of turning from the gates of William and Mary to the wide

sweep before the Capitol. Houses bordered it, flush with the street or set

back in fragrant gardens; other and narrower ways opened from it; half way

down its length wide greens, where the buttercups were thick in the grass,

stretched north and south. Beyond these greens were more houses, more

mulberries and poplars, and finally, closing the vista, the brick façade

of the Capitol.