“You have ever said you would marry an earl, Dolly,” I said sadly.  “I believe you do not care for any of us one little bit.”

She turned away, so that for the moment I could not see her face, then looked at me with exquisite archness over her shoulder.  The low tones of her voice were of a richness indescribable.  ’Twas seldom she made use of them.

“You will be coming to Oxford, Richard.”

“I fear not, Dolly,” I replied soberly.  “I fear not, now.  Mr. Carvel is too feeble for me to leave him.”

At that she turned to me, another mood coming like a gust of wind on the Chesapeake.

“Oh, how I wish they were all like you!” she cried, with a stamp of her foot.  “Sometimes I despise gallantry.  I hate the smooth compliments of your macaronies.  I thank Heaven you are big and honest and clumsy and—­”

“And what, Dorothy?” I asked, bewildered.

“And stupid,” said she.  “Now take me back, sir.”

We had not gone thirty paces before we heard a hearty bass voice singing: 

       “’It was a lover and his lass,
        With a hey, with a ho, with a hey nonino.’”

And there was Colonel Sharpe, straying along among the privet hedges.

And so the morning of her sailing came, so full of sadness for me.  Why not confess, after nigh threescore years, that break of day found me pacing the deserted dock.  At my back, across the open space, was the irregular line of quaint, top-heavy shops since passed away, their sightless windows barred by solid shutters of oak.  The good ship Annapolis, which was to carry my playmate to broader scenes, lay among the shipping, in the gray roads just quickening with returning light.  How my heart ached that morning none shall ever know.  But, as the sun shot a burning line across the water, a new salt breeze sprang up and fanned a hope into flame.  ’Twas the very breeze that was to blow Dorothy down the bay.  Sleepy apprentices took down the shutters, and polished the windows until they shone again; and chipper Mr. Denton Jacques, who did such a thriving business opposite, presently appeared to wish me a bright good morning.

I knew that Captain Waring proposed to sail at ten of the clock; but after breakfasting, I was of two minds whether to see the last of Miss Dorothy, foreseeing a levee in her honour upon the ship.  And so it proved.  I had scarce set out in a pungy from the dock, when I perceived a dozen boats about the packet; and when I thrust my shoulders through the gangway, there was the company gathered at the mainmast.  They made a gay bit of colour,—­Dr. Courtenay in a green coat laced with fine Mechlin, Fitzhugh in claret and silk stockings of a Quaker gray, and the other gentlemen as smartly drest.  The Dulany girls and the Fotheringay girls, and I know not how many others, were there to see their friend off for home.

In the midst of them was Dorothy, in a crimson silk capuchin, for we had had one of our changes of weather.  It was she who spied me as I was drawing down the ladder again.