and flung it over Patricia's golden head, then
offered his arm to Mistress Lettice.

The wharf was but a stone's throw from the wooden gates, and they were
soon treading the long stretch of gray, weather-beaten boards. Others
were before them, for the news that the sloop was coming in had drawn a
small crowd to the wharf to welcome the master.

The dozen or so of boatmen, white and black, who had been tinkering
about in the various barges, shallops and canoes tied to the mossy
piles, left their employments and scrambled up upon the platform, and a
trio of youthful darkies, fishing for crabs with a string and a piece of
salt pork, allowed their lines to fall slack and their intended victims
to walk coolly off with the meat, so intense was their interest in the
oncoming sail. A knot of negro women had left the great house kitchen
and stood, hands on hips, chatting volubly with a contingent from the
quarters, their red and yellow turbans nodding up and down like
grotesque Dutch tulips. The company was made up by an overseer with a
broadleafed palmetto hat pulled down over his eyes and a clay pipe stuck
between his teeth, a pale young man who acted as secretary to the master
of the plantation, and by three or four small land-owners and tenants
for whom Colonel Verney had graciously undertaken various commissions in
Jamestown, and who were on hand to make their acknowledgments to the
great man.

They all made deferential way for the two ladies and Sir Charles Carew.
Mistress Lettice commenced a condescending conversation with one of the
tenants, Darkeih added a white tulip to the red and yellow ones, and
Patricia, followed by Sir Charles, walked to the edge of the wharf, and
leaning upon the rude railing looked down the glassy reaches of the
water to the approaching boat.

The wind had sunk into a fitful breeze and the white sail moved very
slowly. The tide was in, and the water lapped with a cooling sound
against the dark green piles. In the distance the blue of the bay
melted into the blue of the sky, while the nearer waters mirrored every
passing gull, the masts of the fishing boats, the tall marsh grass, the
dead twigs marking oyster beds--each object had its double. On a point
of marshy ground stood a line of cranes, motionless as soldiers on
parade, until, taking fright as the great sail glided past, they whirred
off, uttering discordant cries and with their legs sticking out like
tail feathers. Slowly, and keepin