stayed upon her lips; she moved with dignity through the stately dance,
scarce erring once, graceful and fine in all that she did. Haward,
enamored, his wits afire, went mechanically through the oft-trod measure,
and swore to himself that he held in his hand the pearl of price, the
nonpareil of earth. In this dance and under cover of the music they could
speak to each other unheard of those about them.

"'Queen of all the fairies,' did he call you?" he asked. "That was well
said. When we are at Fair View again, thou must show me where thou wonnest
with thy court, in what moonlit haunt, by what cool stream"--

"I would I were this night at Fair View glebe house," said Audrey. "I
would I were at home in the mountains."

Her voice, sunken with pain and longing, was for him alone. To the other
dancers, to the crowded room at large, she seemed a brazen girl, with
beauty to make a goddess, wit to mask as a great lady, effrontery to
match that of the gentleman who had brought her here. The age was free,
and in that London which was dear to the hearts of the Virginians ladies
of damaged reputation were not so unusual a feature of fashionable
entertainments as to receive any especial notice. But Williamsburgh was
not London, and the dancer yonder, who held her rose-crowned head so high,
was no lady of fashion. They knew her now for that dweller at Fair View
gates of whom, during the summer just past, there had been whispering
enough. Evidently, it was not for naught that Mr. Marmaduke Haward had
refused invitations, given no entertainments, shut himself up at Fair
View, slighting old friends and evincing no desire to make new ones. Why,
the girl was a servant,--nothing more nor less; she belonged to Gideon
Darden, the drunken minister; she was to have married Jean Hugon, the
half-breed trader. Look how the Governor, enlightened at last, glowered at