Rising hastily from her seat, Virginia advanced to her mother, who, without giving her time to speak, even had she been so inclined, sang out at the top of her voice—“Come along, my daughter. Here are the guests in your father's house kept waiting in the porch to tell you good-bye, and you, forsooth, must be talking, the Lord knows what, to that young scape-gallows yonder, who hasn't modesty enough to know when and where he's wanted.” “Dear mother, don't speak so loud,” whispered the poor girl. “Don't talk so loud, forsooth—and why? They that put themselves where they are not wanted and not asked, must expect to hear ill of themselves.” “There comes my pretty Jeanie,” said her old father, as he saw her approach. “And so you found her at last, mother. Come here, dearest, we have been waiting for you.” The sweet tones of that gentle voice, which however harsh at times to others, were ever modulated to the sweetest music when he spoke to her, fell upon the ears of the poor confused and mortified girl, in such comforting accents, that the full heart could no longer restrain its gushing feelings, and she burst into tears. With swollen eyes and with a heavy heart she bade adieu to the several guests, and as Sir William Berkeley, in the mistaken kindness of his heart, kissed her cheek, and whispered that Bernard would soon return and all would be happy again, she sobbed as if her gentle heart would break. “I always tell the Colonel that he ruins the child,” said Mrs. Temple to the Governor, with one of her blandest smiles, on seeing this renewed exhibition of sensibility. “It was not so in our day, Lady Frances; we had other things to think about than crying and weeping. Tears were not so shallow then.” Lady Frances Berkeley nodded a stately acquiescence to this tribute to the stoicism of the past, and made some sage, original and relevant reflection, that shallow streams ever were the most noisy—and then kissing the weeping girl, repeated the grateful assurance that Bernard would not be long absent, and that she herself would be present at the happy bridal, to taste the bride's cake and quaff the knitting cup,[46] with other like consolations well calculated to restore tranquillity and happiness to the bosom of the disconsolate Virginia. And so the unfortunate Berkeley commenced that fatal flight, which contributed so largely to divert the arms of the insurgents from the Indians to the government, and to change what else might have been a mere unauthorized attack upon the common enemies of the country into a protracted and bloody civil war.