* * * * *

In Williamsburgh as at Westover the autumn was dying, the winter was coming, but neither farewell nor greeting perturbed the cheerful town.  To and fro through Palace and Nicholson and Duke of Gloucester streets were blown the gay leaves; of early mornings white frosts lay upon the earth like fairy snows, but midday and afternoon were warm and bright.  Mistress Stagg’s garden lay to the south, and in sheltered corners bloomed marigolds and asters, while a vine, red-leafed and purple-berried, made a splendid mantle for the playhouse wall.

Within the theatre a rehearsal of “Tamerlane” was in progress.  Turk and Tartar spoke their minds, and Arpasia’s death cry clave the air.  The victorious Emperor passed final sentence upon Bajazet; then, chancing to glance toward the wide door, suddenly abdicated his throne, and in the character of Mr. Charles Stagg blew a kiss to his wife, who, applauding softly, stood in the opening that was framed by the red vine.

“Have you done, my dear?” she cried.  “Then pray come with me a moment!”

The two crossed the garden, and entered the grape arbor where in September Mistress Stagg had entertained her old friend, my Lady Squander’s sometime waiting-maid.  Now the vines were bare of leaves, and the sunshine streaming through lay in a flood upon the earth.  Mary Stagg’s chair was set in that golden warmth, and upon the ground beside it had fallen some bright sewing.  The silken stuff touched a coarser cloth, and that was the skirt of Darden’s Audrey, who sat upon the ground asleep, with her arm across the chair, and her head upon her arm.

“How came she here?” demanded Mr. Stagg at last, when he had given a tragedy start, folded his arms, and bent his brows.

“She ran away,” answered Mistress Stagg, in a low voice, drawing her spouse to a little distance from the sleeping figure.  “She ran away from the glebe house and went up the river, wanting—­the Lord knows why!—­to reach the mountains.  Something happened to bring her to her senses, and she turned back, and falling in with that trader, Jean Hugon, he brought her to Jamestown in his canoe.  She walked from there to the glebe house,—­that was yesterday.  The minister was away, and Deborah, being in one of her passions, would not let her in.  She’s that hard, is Deborah, when she’s angry, harder than the nether millstone!  The girl lay in the woods last night.  I vow I’ll never speak again to Deborah, not though there were twenty Baths behind us!” Mistress Stagg’s voice began to tremble.  “I was sitting sewing in that chair, now listening to your voices in the theatre, and now harking back in my mind to old days when we weren’t prosperous like we are now....  And at last I got to thinking of the babe, Charles, and how, if she had lived and grown up, I might ha’ sat there sewing a pretty gown for my own child, and how happy I would have made her.  I tried to see her standing beside me, laughing, pretty as a rose, waiting for me to take the last stitch.  It got so real that I raised my head to tell my dead child how I was going to knot her ribbons, ... and there was this girl looking at me!”