| ere many girls. And last, but not least, had come Sir Edwyn's doves. Things had changed since that day—at the memory of which men still held their sides—when Madam West, then the only woman in the town with youth and beauty, had marched down the street to the pillory, mounted it, called to her the drummer, and ordered him to summon to the square by tuck of drum every man in the place. Which done, and the amazed population at hand, gaping at the spectacle of the wife of their commander (then absent from home) pilloried before them, she gave command, through the crier, that they should take their fill of gazing, whispering, and nudging then and there, forever and a day, and then should go about their business and give her leave to mind her own. That day was gone, but men still dropped their work to see a woman pass, still cheered when a farthingale appeared over a ship's side, and at church still devoted their eyes to other ser- vice than staring at the minister. In our short but crowded his- tory few things had made a greater stir than the coming in of Sir Edwyn's maids. They were married now, but they were still the observed of all observers; to be pointed out to strangers, run after by children, gaped at by the vulgar, bowed to with broad smiles by Burgess, Councilor, and commander, and openly contemned by those dames who had attained to a hus- band in somewhat more regular fashion. Of the ninety who had arrived two weeks before, the greater number had found hus- bands in the town itself or in the neighboring hundreds, so that in the crowd that had gathered to withstand the Spaniard, and had stayed to welcome the King's favorite, there were farthin- gales not a few. But there were none like the woman whose hand I had kissed in the courting meadow. In the throng, that day, in her Puritan dress and amid the crowd of meaner beauties, she had passed without overmuch comment, and since that day none had seen her save Rolfe and the minister, my servants and myself; and when "The Spaniard!" was cried, men thought of other things than the beauty of women; so that until this moment she had escaped any special notice. Now all that was changed. The Governor, following the pointing of those insolent eyes, fixed his own upon her in a stare of sheer amazement; the gold-laced quality about him craned necks, lifted eyebrows, and |
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