use she was vain of her
power, but because she saw the good it did.

The service once over, there were greetings to exchange, the news of the
neighborhood to talk over, crops to discuss, and what not. My heart would
burn within me as I saw the men buzzing about Dorothy like flies about a
dish of honey, though my jealousy was lightened when I saw that while she
had a gay word for each of them, she smiled on all alike. The minx could
read my mind like an open book, whether I was moping in one corner of the
churchyard or on the bench beside her, and she loved to tease me by
pretending great admiration for this man or that, and consulting me about
him as she would have done a brother. Which, I need hardly say, annoyed
me vastly.

The gossip over, we drove home again to lunch, after which, on the wide
veranda or the bench by the river's edge, I would read Dorothy some bits
of Mr. Addison or Mr. Pope, which latter she could not abide, though his
pungent verses fell in exceeding well with my melancholy humor. Evening
past and bedtime come, I lighted Dorothy's candle for her at the table in
the lower hall, where the silver sticks were set out in their nightly
array like French soldiers, gleaming all in white, and when I gave it to
her and bade her good-night at the stair-foot, I got her hand to hold for
an instant. Then to my room, where over innumerable pipes of
sweet-scented, I struggled with some halting verses of my own until my
candle guttered in its stick.

Hours and hours did I pass thinking how I might tell her of my love, but
at the last I concluded it were better to say nothing, until I had
something more to offer her. What right had I, I questioned bitterly, to
offer marriage to any maid, when I had no home to which to take a wife,
and I had never felt the irksomeness of my circumstances as I did at that
moment. Something of my thought she must have understood, for she was
very kind to me, and never by any word or act showed that she thought of
the poverty of my condition.

So August and September passed, and great events were stirring. The House
of Burgesses had met, and had been much impressed by the showing we had
made against the French, so that they passed a vote of thanks to Colonel
Washington for his distinguished services, and to the officers and men
who had been with him. Dinwiddie was most eager that another advance
should be made at once against Duquesne, but Colonel Washington pointed
out how hopeless