long
in the fair future of this fair land to a great and noble family sprung
from the union of Verney and Carew. Patricia, trust me, sees all this
with my eyes."

"Humph!" said the Governor again.

CHAPTER IV

THE BREAKING HEART

Sir Charles was up with the two girls before they reached the garden;
and they passed together through the gate and into the spicy wilderness.
The dew was falling, and as they sauntered through the narrow paths,
Betty held back her skirts that the damp leaves of sage and marjoram
might not brush them; but Patricia, gathering larkspur and
sweet-william, was heedless of her finery. At the further end of the
garden was a wicket leading into a grove of mulberries. The three walked
on beneath the spreading branches and the broad, heart-shaped leaves,
until they came to a tree of extraordinary height and girth whose roots
bulged out into great, smooth excrescences like inverted bowls. Patricia
stopped. "Betty is tired," she said kindly, "and she shall sit here and
rest. Betty is a windflower, Sir Charles, a little tender timid flower,
frail and sweet--are you not, Betty?" She sat down upon one of the
bowls, and pulled her friend down beside her. Sir Charles leaned against
the trunk of the tree. "Betty is a little Puritan," continued Patricia;
"she would not wear the set of ribbons I had for her; and that hurt me
very much."

"O Patricia!" cried Betty, with tears in her eyes. "If I thought you
really cared! But even then I could not wear them!"

"No, you little martyr," said the other, with a kiss. "You would go to
the stake any day for what you call your 'principles.' And I honor you
for it, you know I do. Cousin Charles, do you know that Betty thinks it
wrong to hold slaves?"

Sir Charles laughed, and Betty's delicate face flushed.

"O Patricia!" she cried. "I did not say that! I only said that we would
not like it ourselves."

"'Pon my soul, I don't suppose we would," said Sir Charles coolly. "But,
Mistress Betty, the negroes have neither thin skins nor nice feelings."

"I know that," said Betty bravely; "and I know that our divines and
learned men cannot yet decide whether or not they have souls. And, of
course, if they have not, they are as well treated as other animals; but
all the same I am sorry for them, and I am sorry for the servants too."

"For the servants!" cried Patricia, arching her brows.

"Yes," said Betty, standing to her guns. "I am sorry for the servants,
f