"And," with some sternness, "you will be careful to hold your tongue as to this man's presence here to-night." "Very well, father." "You are not to speak of it to Mistress Patricia or to any one." "I will be silent, my father." "Very well," said the Major. "You are not like the majority of women. I know that your word is as good as an oath. Now run away to bed, sweetheart, and forget that you have seen this messenger." "I am going now, father," said Betty, obediently. "Is Mistress Patricia well, good fellow?" "Quite well, I believe, madam." "She spake of crossing to Accomac with Mistress Lettice and Sir Charles Carew, when the latter should go to visit Colonel Scarborough. Know you if she went?" "I think not, madam. I think that Sir Charles Carew went alone." "Ah! They have fallen out then," said Betty, half to herself, and with a demure satisfaction in her wild flower face. "I am glad of it, for I like him not. Thanks, good fellow, for your answering my idle questions." Landless bowed gravely. Betty bent her pretty head, and with a hasty, "I am going, father!" in answer to an impatient movement on the part of the Major, vanished from the room. Carrington waited until the last light footfall had died away, and then said, "Our interview is over. Are you satisfied?" "At least, I understand your position." "Yes," said Carrington, thoughtfully, "it is as well that you should understand it. It is simple. I wish you well. I am in heart a Commonwealth's man. I love not the Stuarts. I would fain see this fair land freed from their rule and returned to the good days of the Commonwealth. And I may as well acknowledge, since you have found it out for yourself,"--a haughty smile,--"that I have my ambitions. What man has not?" He rose and began to pace the room, his hands clasped behind him, his handsome head bent, his rich robe trailing upon the ground behind him. "I could rule this land more acceptably to the people than can William Berkeley with his parrot phrases, 'divine right,' and 'passive obedience.' I know the people and am popular with them, with Royalist and Churchman as well as with Nonconformist and Oliverian. I know the needs of the colony--home rule, self taxation, free trade, a more liberal encouragement to emigrants, religious tolerance, a rod of iron for the Indians, the establishment of a direct slave trade with Africa and the Indies. I could so rule this colony that in a twelvemonth's time, Richard Verney or Stephen Ludlow, hot Royalists though they be, would be forced to acknowledge that never, since the day Smith sailed up the James, had Virginia enjoyed a tithe of her present prosperity." "'Tis a consummation devoutly to be desired,'" said Landless, dryly. "In the mean time, like the cat i' the adage--" "You are insolent, sirrah!" "When a stripling I served under one who took the bitter with the sweet, the danger as well as the reward, who led the soldiers from whom he took his throne."