rose than had been
since the days of the Princess Pocahontas and her train of dusky
beauties. To this fairer, more imperial dame gold lace doffed its
hat and made its courtliest bow, and young planters bent to their
saddlebows, while the common folk nudged and stared and had their
say. The beauty, the grace, the pride, that deigned small response
to well-meant words,--all that would have been intolerable in plain
Mistress Percy, once a waiting maid, then a piece of merchandise to be
sold for one hundred and twenty pounds of tobacco, then the wife of a
poor gentleman, was pardoned readily enough to the Lady Jocelyn Leigh,
the ward of the King, the bride to be (so soon as the King's Court
of High Commission should have snapped in twain an inconvenient and
ill-welded fetter) of the King's minion.

So she passed like a splendid vision through the street perhaps once a
week. On Sundays she went with me to church, and the people looked at
her instead of at the minister, who rebuked them not, because his eyes
were upon the same errand.

The early autumn passed and the leaves began to turn, and still all
things were as they had been, save that the Assembly sat no longer. My
fellow Burgesses went back to their hundreds, but my house at Weyanoke
knew me no more. In a tone that was apologetic, but firm, the Governor
had told me that he wished my company at Jamestown. I was pleased enough
to stay, I assured him,--as indeed I was. At Weyanoke, the thunderbolt
would fall without warning; at Jamestown, at least I could see, coming
up the river, the sails of the Due Return or what other ship the Company
might send.

The color of the leaves deepened, and there came a season of a beauty
singular and sad, like a smile left upon the face of the dead summer.
Over all things, near and far, the forest where it met the sky, the
nearer woods, the great river, and the streams that empty into it,
there hung a blue haze, soft and dream-like. The forest became a painted
forest, with an ever thinning canopy and an ever thickening carpet of
crimson and gold; everywhere there was a low rustling underfoot and a
slow rain of color. It was neither cold nor hot, but very quiet, and the
birds went by like shadows,--a listless and forgetful weather, in which
we began to look, every hour of every day, for the sail which we knew we
should not see for weeks to come.

Good Master Bucke tarried with Master Thorpe at Henricus, recruiting
his strength, and Je