No sooner was Governor Berkeley inaugurated, after receiving his commission from Charles II., than he gave a grand reception at which there was music and dancing. The young widow was there in silk, lace and ruffles, her black eyes sparkling with pleasure. Hugh Price, a great favorite of the governor, was one of the most dashing gentlemen in Virginia at the time. He was a handsome fellow with hair bordering on redness and eyes a dark brown. His mustache was between golden and red, and he possessed an excellent form. He was seen much in the society of the widow Stevens, and some of his friends began to chaff him on his attentions, which made the cavalier blush. "Verily, Hugh is a good cavalier, Dorothe is a royalist and was never happy with John Stevens; it is better that she wed him." Robert Stevens was twelve or fourteen, when his mother, laying aside her widow's weeds, became young again. Robert remembered his father and their days of privation, and he did not forget that all they had, they owed to that father. He witnessed his mother's smiles and blushes with some anxiety. One day, as he was going an errand to Neck of Land, he was accosted by a meddlesome fellow named William Stump, with: "Master Robert, do you know you are soon to have a father-in-law?" (Stepfather was in those days known as father-in-law.) "No!" cried the boy, indignantly. "By the mass! you are. Don't you observe how Hugh Price is continually with your mother?" Robert's eyes filled with tears, and he cried: "I will kill him!" William Stump, laughing at the misery he had occasioned, answered: "Marry! lad, you can do naught. Better win the favor of Hugh, for he can be a cruel master." Robert went on his errand, hating both Hugh Price and William Stump, and he determined to appeal to his mother to have no more to do with Hugh Price. Robert had been sent on the errand by the mother, that he might be away when Hugh Price came. She had an intuition, as women sometimes do, that the supreme moment had arrived in which Hugh would "speak his mind." The widow looked very pretty in her lace and silk and frilled cap, from which the raven tresses peeped. She had also managed to dispose of little Rebecca, so the coast was clear when Mr. Price, on his gayly caparisoned steed, arrived. To one not acquainted with the state of Hugh Price's mind, his appearance and behavior on the occasion of his ride from Greensprings to Jamestown would have been mysterious and unaccountable. Dismounting at the stiles he gave the rein to a gayly dressed negro, who led the animal into the barn while the negro girl showed him to the parlor, which was furnished gorgeously. The harp which the widow played was in the corner with her Spanish guitar. The room was unoccupied when Hugh entered. He paced to and fro with nervous tread, popped his head out of the window at intervals of three or four minutes and glanced at the hourglass on the mantel, manifesting an impatience unusual in him.