Rising, he went to a shelf of battered, dog-eared books, and taking down an armful proceeded to strew the volumes upon the table.  The red blooms of the columbine being in the way, he took up the bunch and tossed it out of the window.  With the light thud of the mass upon the ground eyes of husband and wife met.

“Hugon would marry the girl,” said the latter, twisting the hem of her apron with restless fingers.

Without change of countenance, Darden leaned forward, seized her by the shoulder and shook her violently.  “You are too given to idle and meaningless words, Deborah,” he declared, releasing her.  “By the Lord, one of these days I’ll break you of the habit for good and all!  Hugon, and scarlet flowers, and who will marry Audrey, that is yet but a child and useful about the house,—­what has all this to do with the matter in hand, which is simply to make ourselves and our house presentable in the eyes of my chief parishioner?  A man would think that thirteen years in Virginia would teach any fool the necessity of standing well with a powerful gentleman such as this.  I’m no coward.  Damn sanctimonious parsons and my Lord Bishop’s Scotch hireling!  If they yelp much longer at my heels, I’ll scandalize them in good earnest!  It’s thin ice, though,—­it’s thin ice; but I like this house and glebe, and I’m going to live and die in them,—­and die drunk, if I choose, Mr. Commissary to the contrary!  It’s of import, Deborah, that my parishioners, being easy folk, willing to live and let live, should like me still, and that a majority of my vestry should not be able to get on without me.  With this in mind, get out the wine, dust the best chair, and be ready with thy curtsy.  It will be time enough to cry Audrey’s banns when she is asked in marriage.”

Audrey, in her brown dress, with the color yet in her cheeks, entering at the moment, Mistress Deborah attempted no response to her husband’s adjuration.  Darden turned to the girl.  “I’ve done with the writing for the nonce, child,” he said, “and need you no longer.  I’ll smoke a pipe and think of my sermon.  You’re tired; out with you into the sunshine!  Go to the wood or down by the creek, but not beyond call, d’ye mind.”

Audrey looked from one to the other, but said nothing.  There were many things in the world of other people which she did not understand; one thing more or less made no great difference.  But she did understand the sunlit roof, the twilight halls, the patterned floor of the forest.  Blossoms drifting down, fleeing shadows, voices of wind and water, and all murmurous elfin life spoke to her.  They spoke the language of her land; when she stepped out of the door into the air and faced the portals of her world, they called to her to come.  Lithe and slight and light of foot, she answered to their piping.  The orchard through which she ran was fair with its rosy trees, like gayly dressed curtsying dames; the slow, clear creek that held the double of the sky