"For the matter o' that," said Brent, with some bitterness, "he need not have gone further afield than across the river. He would have found enough Catholic-haters in Virginia to protect him." "We may be over zealous, your Excellency," the young man answered, "but we do not countenance evil-doers, and 'twere hard to find in Maryland a cavalier who has the King's cause more at heart than Sir William Berkeley." "You say truth, Master Huntoon, and do well to maintain the honor of your province against all slander. My regards to Sir William Berkeley when you return--and when is that to be?" "In two or three days at furthest now. The ketch is already loaded and I tarry only from hour to hour." "May the ketch and all your other ventures come safe to shore!" said Brent, rising and taking the hand of Huntoon. "Mistress Neville, I will see you again before my return to St. Gabriel's, and charge myself with any message you may wish to send." With this adieu the Governor took his leave. The young people, who had risen with him, still stood facing each other in silence, now that they were alone. "Why do you not take a chair once more?" asked Peggy, fingering the border of her flowered lawn apron. "I have not been asked," Huntoon responded. "I feared to detain you from business of more importance," murmured the little hypocrite. "Mistress Neville," said Romney, "I have known you but seven days." "Is it really so long?" asked Peggy, demurely looking out at him from behind the protecting curtain of her long lashes. "So long!" exclaimed the youth. He was only twenty, and the power to receive and parry comes later to men than to girls. Even Peggy Neville felt a twinge of compunction at his throwing himself thus upon her mercy. "They have been pleasant days," she continued, "and therefore by all the laws of life should have seemed short." "Why, so they have!" the boy rushed on,--"short as a flash of lightning in the passing, long as July sunlight in the thinking over; and now they are drawing to an end, somehow a darkness seems to fall around me. When I think of sailing down the river, away from the sight of the huddle of cottages, from the great cross in the centre of the village, from the glimpse of this little window that gives on the wharf, my heart sinks." "I wonder why," said Peggy; but this time she did not look at him. "May I tell you?" "No, no--of course not," the girl hastened to say in a quick, business-like voice. "'Tis no affair of mine to pry into the feelings of all the young men who come to St. Mary's. Besides, here comes my aunt, and she will be more concerned to bring out wine and seed-cake for your entertainment than to hear of your regrets at parting. However," the tease went on wickedly, "if it would relieve your mind to tell her I will bring the subject before her."