there was delight in the girl’s beauty, pride in the comment and wonder of the town, self-congratulation and the pleasing knowledge that wisdom is vindicated of its children.  Was not all this of her bringing about?  Did it not first occur to her that the child might take Jane Day’s place?  Even Charles, who strutted and plumed himself and offered his snuffbox to every passer-by, must acknowledge that!  Mistress Stagg stopped her sewing to laugh triumphantly, then fell to work more diligently than ever; for it was her pleasure to dress Darden’s Audrey richly, in soft colors, heavy silken stuffs upon which was lavished a wealth of delicate needlework.  It was chiefly while she sat and sewed upon these pretty things, with Audrey, book on knee, close beside her, that her own child seemed to breathe again.

Audrey thanked her and kissed her, and wore what she was given to wear, nor thought how her beauty was enhanced.  If others saw it, if the wonder grew by what it fed on, if she was talked of, written of, pledged, and lauded by a frank and susceptible people, she knew of all this little enough, and for what she knew cared not at all.  Her days went dreamily by, nor very sad nor happy; full of work, yet vague and unmarked as desert sands.  What was real was a past that was not hers, and those dead women to whom night by night she gave life and splendor.

There were visitors to whom she was not denied.  Darden came at times, sat in Mistress Stagg’s sunny parlor, and talked to his sometime ward much as he had talked in the glebe-house living room,—­discursively, of men and parochial affairs and his own unmerited woes.  Audrey sat and heard him, with her eyes upon the garden without the window.  When he lifted from the chair his great shambling figure, and took his stained old hat and heavy cane, Audrey rose also, curtsied, and sent her duty to Mistress Deborah, but she asked no questions as to that past home of hers.  It seemed not to interest her that the creek was frozen so hard that one could walk upon it to Fair View, or that the minister had bought a field from his wealthy neighbor, and meant to plant it with Oronoko.  Only when he told her that the little wood—­the wood that she had called her own—­was being cleared, and that all day could be heard the falling of the trees, did she lift startled eyes and draw a breath like a moan.  The minister looked at her from under shaggy brows, shook his head, and went his way to his favorite ordinary, rum, and a hand at cards.

Mistress Deborah she beheld no more; but once the Widow Constance brought Barbara to town, and the two, being very simple women, went to the play to see the old Audrey, and saw instead a queen, tinseled, mock-jeweled, clad in silk, who loved and triumphed, despaired and died.  The rude theatre shook to the applause.  When it was all over, the widow and Barbara went dazed to their lodging, and lay awake through the night talking of these marvels.  In the morning they found the small white house, and Audrey came to them in the garden.  When she had kissed them, the three sat down in the arbor; for it was a fine, sunny morning, and not cold.  But the talk was not easy; Barbara’s eyes were so round, and the widow kept mincing her words.  Only when they were joined by Mistress Stagg, to whom the widow became voluble, the two girls spoke aside.