“Then the Lady Rebecca doth not like our country?” queried the dame in grey.

“Ah, but yea.  In truth it pleaseth me mightily, all but the dark skies.  And they tell me that is because of the smoke of the city.”

Then Pocahontas’s eyes caught sight of an older woman whom Rolfe was escorting towards her.  There was something about her appearance that was very pleasing.  She was a little above medium height, with hair silvered in front and with cheeks as full of color as the roses she carried in her hands.  Pocahontas felt at once that here was a woman whom she could love.  Her manner was as dignified as that of any lady in the assemblage, but there was a heartiness in her voice and in her glance which made Pocahontas feel at home as she had not before felt in England.

“This is Lady De La Ware, whose husband, thou knowest, Rebecca, was Governor of our Colony,” said Rolfe, “and she hath brought these English roses to thee.”  Then he strolled off, leaving the two women together.

“They are very beautiful, thy flowers,” said Pocahontas, smiling at them and at their giver, “and sweeter than the blossoms that grow in my land.”

“Yet those are wonderful, too.  I have heard of many glorious trees and vines which grow there and I would that I might see them.”

“If thou wilt cross the ocean with us when we return, I will show thee many things that would be as strange to thee as thy land is to me.  I would take thee to my father, Powhatan, and he would give dances in thine honour that would not be”—­and she laughed again at the thought—­“like the ball my Lord Bishop giveth me.”

Lady De La Ware smiled, too.  She had been told something about the Indian customs.

“Perhaps some day thou shalt take me to thy father’s court; but now I am come to take thee to that of our Queen.  She hath expressed her desire to see thee shortly.  A letter which was written her by Captain John Smith about thee hath made her all the more eager to do honour to one who hath ever befriended the English.”

“Captain John Smith hath written to the Queen about me?” said Pocahontas, marvelling.

“In truth, and since his words seemed to me worthy of remembrance, I have kept them in my mind.”  He begins: 

“’If ingratitude be a deadly poyson to all honest vertues, I must be guiltie of that crime if I should omit any meanes to be thankfull.  So it is that some ten years ago being in Virginia, and taken prisoner by the power of Powhatan, their chief King, I received from this great savage exceeding great courtesy, especially from his son, Nautauquas, the most manliest, comeliest, boldest spirit I ever saw in a savage, and his sister, Pocahontas, the King’s most dear and well beloved daughter, being but a child of twelve or thirteen years of age, whose compassionate pitiful heart, of my desperate estate, gave me much cause to respect her—­she hazarded the beating out of her own brains to save mine ... the most and least I can do is to tell you this, because none so oft tried it as myself, and the rather being of so great a spirit, however her stature, if she should not be well received, seeing this Kingdom may rightly have a Kingdom by her means—­’ And much more there was, Lady Rebecca, which I cannot now recall.”