Just then President Wingfield and several officers of the Council, having heard the news of Pocahontas’s visit, came toward them.  They realized that the presence among them of this child, the best-loved daughter of the powerful Indian chieftain, was an important event.  They did not quite know what to expect.  Vague ideas of some Eastern queenly beauty, such as the Queen of Sheba or Semiramis, had led them to look for a certain royal magnificence of bearing and of garments, and they were taken aback to behold this slim young creature whose clothing in the eyes of some of them was inadequate.  Nevertheless, they soon discovered that though she wore no royal purple nor jewels she bore herself with a dignity that was both maidenly and regal.  They had hurriedly put on their own best collars and ruffs and to the eyes of the unsophisticated Indian girl they made a brave, though strange, appearance.  She listened to their words of welcome and answered them through Smith’s interpretation.  But all the while she was taking in every detail of their costumes.

“We must give her presents,” suggested one of the councillors as if discovering an idea that had come to no one else, and he sent a servant to fetch some of the trinkets which they had brought for the purpose of bartering with the savages.

Pocahontas forgot her dignity at the sight of them and clapped her hands in delight as Smith threw over her head a long chain of white and blue beads.  Her pleasure was even greater when he held up a little mirror and she saw her face for the first time reflected in anything but a forest pool.

“Is that too for me?” she asked eagerly and clasped it to her breast when it was put into her hand, and then she peered into it from one side and the other, unwearied in making acquaintance with her own features.

The other maidens and Claw-of-the-Eagle were given presents also, but less showy ones.  Smith went into his own little house and after hunting through his sea-chest, brought out a silver bracelet which he slipped on Pocahontas’s arm, saying: 

“This is to remind Matoaka always that she is my sister and that I am her brother.”

It seemed to Pocahontas that she was incapable of receiving any further new impressions.  It was as if her mind were a vessel filled to the brim with water that could not take another drop.  Like a squirrel given more nuts than it can eat at once, who rushes to hide them away, her instinct made her long to take her treasures off where she could look at them alone.

“I go back to my father’s lodge,” she said and did not speak again till they reached the fort.  Then when Smith had seen the little party beyond the palisades, she called back to him: 

“Brother, I shall not forget.  This night I will send thee food.  I am well pleased with thy strange town and I will come again.”

[Illustration:  Decorative]

CHAPTER XII