A shadow across the floor made her turn, quick yet fearless as a bird building in a tree above a house whose inmates never have threatened it. A tall, good-looking young man stood in the doorway, and with his eyes searched the room before he said,-- “Good-morrow, dame. Is Lora somewhere at hand?” “Oh, good-morrow, Ras! Lora has gone to the top of the hill for a breath of evening air. It has been so warm to-day.” “Yes, Hobomok calls it the Indian’s summer because it comes just before winter,” replied Wrestling Brewster absently; and then after another moment of hesitation he pulled off his wide hat, and coming close to the spinner’s side fixed his eyes upon hers with a shy appeal while he asked,-- “Do you think, dame, I might ask her?” “Ask her what, Ras?” “Oh, Dame Barbara, you know full well what I fain would ask.” “There’ll be an apple-bee at your house or at Jonathan’s this week, will there not?” “Ay, at Jonathan’s on the Thursday, and Lucretia bade me invite you all.” “Well, then, you foolish boy, sure that is your errand to Lora, and you’ll find her on the hill, most like at what she calls her sunset seat.” “’Twas I that made it for her,” said Wrestling eagerly, and Barbara, smiling in the way matrons smile at transparent youth, replied,-- “Then you know where it is. Go, and God go with you.” “My grateful duty to you, dame,” murmured the young fellow, and went like an arrow from a bow. A half hour later Barbara, setting her wheel aside, stepped to the door to look toward the hill, and to judge by the position of the sun how near the hour might be to supper time. Coming up from the shore she saw her husband, and at the first glance knew that he was ill-pleased; with this conviction came a foreboding that made her turn her eyes again toward the hill, but now it was the daughter, and not the sun, for which she looked. “Where’s Lora, wife?” inquired the captain so soon as he was within speaking distance. “She went out an hour or so agone for a stroll,” replied the mother mildly. “She has been so steadily stitching at your new shirts, Myles, that I sent her to get a breath of fresh air.” “Belike it’s she I saw upon the hill; ’twas a white gown, at all events.” “And like you no longer to see her in white?” asked Barbara, apparently in great surprise. “Why, ’tis to please you she wears it, though it makes a mort of washing for poor Hepsey. But where hast been thyself, goodman?” “To Plymouth, and Alice Bradford sends you a clutch of eggs from her new brought fowls.” “Nay, but that’s more than kind!” cried Barbara. “And how fares she, and is it true that Prissie Wright will marry Manasses Kempton? And did you get the grist ground, and what said Miller Jenney of not having it yesterday?”