She was holding out her hand.  “It is that of a friend,” she said.  “No, do not kiss it, for that is the act of a lover.  And you are not my lover,—­oh, not yet, not yet!” A soft, exquisite blush stole over her face and neck, but she did not lower her lovely candid eyes.  “Perhaps some day, some summer day at Westover, it will all be different,” she breathed, and turned away.

Haward caught her hand, and bending pressed his lips upon it.  “It is different now!” he cried.  “Next week I shall come to Westover!”

He led her back to the great chair, and presently she asked some question as to the house at Fair View.  He plunged into an account of the cases of goods which had followed him from England by the Falcon, and which now lay in the rooms that were yet to be swept and garnished; then spoke lightly and whimsically of the solitary state in which he must live, and of the entertainments which, to be in the Virginia fashion, he must give.  While he talked she sat and watched him, with the faint smile upon her lips.  The sunshine left the floor and the wall, and a dankness from the long grass and the closing flowers and the heavy trees in the adjacent churchyard stole into the room.  With the coming of the dusk conversation languished, and the two sat in silence until the return of the Colonel.

If that gentleman did not light the darkness like a star, at least his entrance into a room invariably produced the effect of a sudden accession of was lights, very fine and clear and bright.  He broke a jest or two, bade laughing farewell to the master of Fair View, and carried off his daughter upon his arm.  Haward walked with them to the gate, and came back alone, stepping thoughtfully between the lilac bushes.

It was not until Juba had brought candles, and he had taken his seat at table before the half-emptied bottle of wine, that it came to Haward that he had wished to tell Evelyn of the brown girl who had run for the guinea, but had forgotten to do so.

CHAPTER XI

AUDREY OF THE GARDEN

The creek that ran between Fairview and the glebe lands was narrow and deep; upon it, moored to a stake driven into a bit of marshy ground below the orchard, lay a crazy boat belonging to the minister.  To this boat, of an early, sunny morning, came Audrey, and, standing erect, pole in hand, pushed out from the reedy bank into the slow-moving stream.  It moved so slowly and was so clear that its depth seemed the blue depth of the sky, with now and then a tranquil cloud to be glided over.  The banks were low and of the greenest grass, save where they sank still lower and reeds abounded, or where some colored bush, heavy with bloom, bent to meet its reflected image.  It was so fair that Audrey began to sing as she went down the stream; and without knowing why she chose it, she sang a love song learned out of one of Darden’s ungodly books, a plaintive and passionate lay addressed