te literature of the present could
furnish. The mother and daughter did not understand the fine speeches, but
liked them passing well. In their lonely lives, a little thing made
conversation for many and many a day. As for these golden hours,--the
jingle and clank and mellow laughter, the ruffles and gold buttons and
fine cloth, these gentlemen, young and handsome, friendly-eyed,
silver-tongued, the taste of wine, the taste of flattery, the sunshine
that surely was never yet so bright,--ten years from now they would still
be talking of these things, still wishing that such a day could come
again.

The negroes were now busy around the fires, and soon the cheerful odor of
broiling meat rose and blended with the fragrance of the forest. The
pioneer, hospitably minded, beckoned to the four Meherrins, and hastening
with them to the patch of waving corn, returned with a goodly lading of
plump, green ears. A second foraging party, under guidance of the boy,
brought into the larder of the gentry half a dozen noble melons, golden
within and without. The woman whispered to the child, and the latter ran
to the cabin, filled her upgathered skirts with the loaves of her mother's
baking, and came back to the group upon the knoll beneath the sugar-tree.
The Governor himself took the bread from the little maid, then drew her
toward him.

"Thanks, my pretty one," he said, with a smile that for the moment quite
dispelled the expression of haughtiness which marred an otherwise comely
countenance. "Come, give me a kiss, sweeting, and tell me thy name."

The child looked at him gravely. "My name is Audrey," she answered, "and
if you eat all of our bread we'll have none for supper."

The Governor laughed, and kissed the small dark face. "I'll give thee a
gold moidore, instead, my maid. Odso! thou'rt as dark and wild, almost, as
was my little Queen of the Saponies that died last year. Hast never been
away from the mountains, child?"

Audrey shook her head, and thought the question but a foolish one. The
mountains were everywhere. Had she not been to the top of the hills, and
seen for herself that they went from one edge of the world to the other?
She was glad to slip from the Governor's encircling arm, and from the gay
ring beneath the sugar-tree; to take refuge with herself down by the water
side, and watch the fairy tale from afar off.

The rangers, with the pioneer and his son for their guests, dined beside
the kitchen fire, which th