is 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.

When the gold piece was held out to her, she took it, having earned it;
when the little speech with which the lady gave the guinea was ended, she
was ready with her curtsy and her "Thank you, ma'am." The red came into
her cheeks because she was not used to so many eyes upon her, but she did
not blush for her bare feet, nor for her dress that had slipped low over
her shoulder, nor for the fact that she had run her swiftest five times
around the Maypole, all for the love of a golden guinea, and for mere
youth and pure-minded ignorance, and the springtime in the pulses.

The gold piece lay within her brown fingers a thought too lightly, for as
she stepped back from the row of gentlefolk it slid fro