At times Rolfe was very happy, and at other moments perplexed and cast down.  It was joy for him to be in the company of one who made him feel how splendid a thing was life and how full of interest and beauty the woods, fields and river.  Yet when the thought of marriage came to him he remembered the difficulties in the way.  First, she was, though called a princess, only the child of a cruel savage chief and one accustomed to savage ways.  Why should he, an English gentleman, choose her instead of a woman of his own race brought up in the manner of his people?

Then, even if he were willing, it was unlikely that Powhatan would consent to let his daughter wed a white man or the Governor on his side allow it.  So he pondered; but no matter what the obstacles in his way, he came back again and again to his determination to win Pocahontas’s love and to marry her.  Now that she had become a Christian, there was one less barrier between them.

Rolfe believed that his feelings for Pocahontas had gone unnoticed by anyone, but Mistress Lettice, who had grown very fond of the Indian maiden confided to her especial care, was far from blind in anything that concerned her charge.  Moreover, she had heard enough of the discussions which went on in the Council to know that such a marriage would be approved, since it would secure to the Colony the valuable friendship of Powhatan.  But she was also aware of an obstacle which might prevent its coming to pass.  This knowledge of hers she was determined to share.

One day she invited certain members of the Council to her house to drink a cask of sack her brother in London had sent her by the last ship.  She had baked cake, also, and so excellent was its taste after the weariness of plain baker’s bread, that many of her guests sighed at the remembrance of their womanless households; and those who had wives behind in England determined to send for them without further delay.

“But what I have to say, your Worships,” she continued when she had ceased serving and had settled down in a highbacked chair to rest, “is that the Lady Rebecca will never wed another while she harboureth the thought of Captain Smith’s return.”

“What! did he teach her to love him?” exclaimed one who would gladly have listened to any ill of Smith.

“Nay, if ye should even question her thus she would not know how to reply.  She thinketh and speaketh of him constantly and in her thoughts he standeth midway between a god and an elder brother, even as she doth call him.  All the knowledge she acquireth is learned because she believeth he would wish it and will be glad to know that she is no longer the ignorant child of the woods as he first saw her.  She wished even to delay her baptism because she expecteth him by every ship, and this I know full well—­she will marry no man until she hath speech with Captain Smith or,” here she paused significantly, “she believeth him to be dead.”