the wooden steps, with his back to a
pillar, looked up with an amused light in his blue eyes.

"Why are you so eager, cousin?" he drawled. "You cannot be pining for
your father when 'tis scarce five days since he went to Jamestown. Do
the Virginia ladies watch for the arrival of a new batch of slaves with
such impatience?"

"The slaves! No, indeed! But, sir, in that boat there are three cases
from England."

"Ah, that accounts for it! And what may these wonderful cases contain?"

"One contains the dress in which I shall dance with you at the party at
Green Spring which the governor is to give in your honor--if you ask me,
sir. Oh, I take it for granted that you will, so spare us your
protestations. 'Tis to have a petticoat of blue tabby and an overdress
of white satin trimmed with yards and yards of Venice point. The
stockings are blue silk, and come from the French house in Covent
Garden, as doth the scarf of striped gauze and the shoes, gallooned with
silver. Then there are my combs, gloves, a laced waistcoat, a red satin
bodice, a scarlet taffetas mantle, a plumed hat, a pair of clasped
garters, a riding mask, a string of pearls, and the latest romances."

"A pretty list! Is that all?"

"There are things for aunt Lettice, petticoats and ribbons, a gilt
stomacher and a China monster, and for my father, lace ruffles and
bands, a pair of French laced boots, a periwig, a new scabbard for his
rapier, and so on."

The young man laughed. "'Tis a curious life you Virginians lead," he
said. "The embroidered suits and ruffles, the cosmetics and perfumes of
Whitehall in the midst of oyster beds and tobacco fields, savage Indians
and negro slaves."

The girl put on a charming look of mock offense. "We _are_ a little bit
of England set down here in the wilderness. Why should we not clothe
ourselves like gentlefolk as well as our kindred and friends at home?
And sure both England and Virginia have had enough of sad colored
raiment. Better go like a peacock than like a horrid Roundhead."

Her companion laughed musically and sang a stave of a cavalier love
song. He was a slender, well-made man, dressed in the extreme of the
mode of the year of grace sixteen hundred and sixty-three, in a richly
laced suit of camlet with points of blue ribbon, and the great scented
periwig then newly come into fashion. The close curled rings of hair
descending far over his cravat of finest Holland framed a handsome,
lazily insolent face, w