Amid the smoke the side of an iron pot showed at intervals. The singer held her head back, the slightest frown creasing her forehead. She was waiting for the fire to burn clearly, and to encourage it she sang. Her hair, which hung all about her body, was golden-brown, no one tress the same shade as another, the whole a bewildering mantle of beauty. Its wealth became reckless when one crafty ray of sunlight eluded the cloud and shot across her head. "Oh, oh!" she sighed, breaking off her bird-like song. "The sun will not let my fire burn, and--this wicked wind!" The breeze, delighting to flirt with so glorious a creature, veered slyly, and fanned the bitter smoke around her. She danced away coughing, her cheeks scarlet, her red mouth gasping for pure air, her tresses gleaming in their mesh of sunlight. Her movements were as supple as the swaying dance of the pine-branch over her. She tried to laugh while she caught at her breath, and, failing, fell back panting, showing her tiny teeth. Then the violet eyes moved along the path, and all the pretty laughter went out. A white hand drifted like falling snow, stole a tress of hair, and shining pearls began cruelly to bite the silk. No maid could have desired a fairer vision. Geoffrey, tall, slender, and flushed, stood between the trees, his bow in his hands, his Saxon blue eyes meeting the violet glances of timidity with free admiration. The maid of the fire-side beheld his clear complexion, his fair hair tied loosely at the nape of his neck, his strong figure; and as she watched for a few moments, which were not measured by time, her bosom began to rise and fall. Had she not prayed for such a vision? She had surely wasted her sweetness long enough upon the unsatisfying things of her daily life in that lone, hard land. There was that in her young blood which rebelled against her convent-like environment, where she had indeed her freedom, but where the tree of knowledge had not been trained to grow. Viner stepped out and doffed his feathered cap. "Fair mistress," he said, bending before this beauty of the grove, "give me your pardon for coming on you so suddenly. I am a traveller on my way to the south." Madeleine Labroquerie answered him only with her eyes. "Can you tell me how many English miles I am from Plymouth?" He looked up, and learnt that the sun had not yet left the grove. He saw the cloud of hair waving iridescent. His gaze wandered over the beautiful head, until two eyes like purple iris flowers met his. "But I am not English." "Yet you speak in English," he protested. "Why, yes. In England I was brought up. I love England; but I am French, and a Protestant." Geoffrey looked into the grove as he spoke on softly, mindful of his duty: "Tell me, lady, how many days must I travel before I come to the province of Massachusetts?" Madeleine Labroquerie had not a word to say. This handsome stranger had hardly arrived, and already he suggested departure.