cipal actor of the
Williamsburgh theatre, looked complacently over her shoulder. The
minister's wife sighed again, this time with envy.

"What with the theatre, and the bowling green, and tea in your
summer-house, and dancing lessons, and the sale of these fine things, you
and Charles must turn a pretty penny! The luck that some folk have! _You_
were always fortunate, Mary."

Mistress Stagg did not deny the imputation. But she was a kindly soul,
who had not forgotten the gift of my Lady Squander's pink alamode. The
chocolate stain had not been so very large.

"I've laid by a pretty piece of sarcenet of which to make you a capuchin,"
she said promptly. "Now, here's the wine. Shan't we go into the garden,
and sip it there? Peggy," to the black girl holding a salver, "put the
cake and wine on the table in the arbor; then sit here by the window, and
call me if any come. My dear Deborah, I doubt if I have so much as a
ribbon left by the end of the week. The town is that gay! I says to
Mirabell this morning, says I, 'Lord, my dear, it a'most puts me in mind
of Bath!' And Mirabell says--But here's the garden door. Now, isn't it
cool and pleasant out here? Audrey may gather us some grapes. Yes, they're
very fine, full bunches; it has been a bounteous year."

The grape arbor hugged the house, but beyond it was a pretty, shady,
fancifully laid out garden, with shell-bordered walks, a grotto, a
summer-house, and a gate opening into Nicholson Street. Beyond the garden
a glimpse was to be caught through the trees of a trim bowling green. It
had rained the night before, and a delightful, almost vernal freshness
breathed in the air. The bees made a great buzzing amongst the grapes, and
the birds in the mulberry-trees sang as though it were nesting time.
Mistress Stagg and her old acquaintance sat at a table placed in the
shadow of the vines, and sipped their wine, while Audrey obediently
gathered clusters of the purple fruit, and thought the garden very fine,
but oh, not like--There could be no garden in the world so beautiful and
so dear as that! And she had not seen it for so long, so long a time. She
wondered if she would ever see it again.

When she brought the fruit to the table, Mistress Stagg made room for her
kindly enough; and she sat and drank her wine and went to her world of
dreams, while her companions bartered town and country gossip. It has been
said that the small white house adjoined a larger building. A window in