“You are only a woman, and can hold no office, Audrey,” he said, “but I will impart to you words of wisdom whose price is above rubies.  Always agree with your vestry.  Go, hat in hand, to each of its members in turn, craving advice as to the management of your own affairs.  Thunder from the pulpit against Popery, which does not exist in this colony, and the Pretender, who is at present in Italy.  Wrap a dozen black sheep of inferior breed in white sheets and set them arow at the church door, but make it stuff of the conscience to see no blemish in the wealthier and more honorable portion of your flock.  So you will thrive, and come to be inducted into your living, whether in Virginia or some other quarter of the globe.  What’s the worthy Bishop’s next demand?  Hasten, for Hugon is coming this morning, and there’s settlement to be made of a small bet, and a hand at cards.”

By the circular letter and the lips of Audrey the Bishop proceeded to propound a series of questions, which the minister answered with portentous glibness.  In the midst of an estimate of the value of a living in a sweet-scented parish a face looked in at the window, and a dark and sinewy hand laid before Audrey a bunch of scarlet columbine.

“The rock was high,” said a voice, “and the pool beneath was deep and dark.  Here are the flowers that waved from the rock and threw colored shadows upon the pool.”

The girl shrank as from a sudden and mortal danger.  Her lips trembled, her eyes half closed, and with a hurried and passionate gesture she rose from her chair, thrust from her the scarlet blooms, and with one lithe movement of her body put between her and the window the heavy writing table.  The minister laid by his sum in arithmetic.

“Ha, Hugon, dog of a trader!” he cried.  “Come in, man.  Hast brought the skins?  There’s fire-water upon the table, and Audrey will be kind.  Stay to dinner, and tell us what lading you brought down river, and of your kindred in the forest and your kindred in Monacan-Town.”

The man at the window shrugged his shoulders, lifted his brows, and spread his hands.  So a captain of Mousquetaires might have done; but the face was dark-skinned, the cheek-bones were high, the black eyes large, fierce, and restless.  A great bushy peruke, of an ancient fashion, and a coarse, much-laced cravat gave setting and lent a touch of grotesqueness and of terror to a countenance wherein the blood of the red man warred with that of the white.

“I will not come in now,” said the voice again.  “I am going in my boat to the big creek to take twelve doeskins to an old man named Taberer.  I will come back to dinner.  May I not, ma’m’selle?”

The corners of the lips went up, and the thicket of false hair swept the window sill, so low did the white man bow; but the Indian eyes were watchful.  Audrey made no answer; she stood with her face turned away and her eyes upon the door, measuring her chances.  If Darden would let her pass, she might reach the stairway and her own room before the trader could enter the house.  There were bolts to its heavy door, and Hugon might do as he had done before, and talk his heart out upon the wrong side of the wood.  Thanks be! lying upon her bed and pressing the pillow over her ears, she did not have to hear.