The negroes were now busy around the fires, and soon the cheerful odor of broiling meat rose and blended with the fragrance of the forest. The pioneer, hospitably minded, beckoned to the four Meherrins, and hastening with them to the patch of waving corn, returned with a goodly lading of plump, green ears. A second foraging party, under guidance of the boy, brought into the larder of the gentry half a dozen noble melons, golden within and without. The woman whispered to the child, and the latter ran to the cabin, filled her upgathered skirts with the loaves of her mother’s baking, and came back to the group upon the knoll beneath the sugar-tree. The Governor himself took the bread from the little maid, then drew her toward him. “Thanks, my pretty one,” he said, with a smile that for the moment quite dispelled the expression of haughtiness which marred an otherwise comely countenance. “Come, give me a kiss, sweeting, and tell me thy name.” The child looked at him gravely. “My name is Audrey,” she answered, “and if you eat all of our bread we’ll have none for supper.” The Governor laughed, and kissed the small dark face. “I’ll give thee a gold moidore, instead, my maid. Odso! thou’rt as dark and wild, almost, as was my little Queen of the Saponies that died last year. Hast never been away from the mountains, child?” Audrey shook her head, and thought the question but a foolish one. The mountains were everywhere. Had she not been to the top of the hills, and seen for herself that they went from one edge of the world to the other? She was glad to slip from the Governor’s encircling arm, and from the gay ring beneath the sugar-tree; to take refuge with herself down by the water side, and watch the fairy tale from afar off.