rumor of his death--perhaps the heart of Pocahontas was still loyal to
her first love, devoted wife and mother though she was. Whatever may
have been the truth, Lady Rebecca was proud and calm in the presence
of the Captain after that first moment, and had many conversations
with him which increased his admiration for the gracious forest
Princess, now a lady of distinction in his own land.

The climate of England did not agree with Pocahontas, her health
failed rapidly, and in the hope that a return to Virginia would save
her life, her husband took passage for home. But it was too late;
after a sickness of only a few hours, she died, and John Rolfe was
left without the vivid presence which had been his blessing and his
joy.

Pocahontas was buried at Gravesend on the 21st of March, 1617, and as
night fell, and John Rolfe tossed on a bed of anguished memories, it
is said that a man muffled in a great cloak stole through the darkness
and knelt beside the new-made grave with bowed head and clasped hands.

It was Captain Smith who came to offer reverent tribute to the girl
who had given him so much, asking nothing in return, a girl of savage
lineage, yet of noble character and great charm, whose blossoming into
the flower of civilization had no parallel. Alone there, in the somber
night, the silent figure knelt--the brave Captain of her loyal
devotion paying tardy homage to Pocahontas, the girl of the Virginia
forest, the white man's steadfast friend.

DOROTHY QUINCY: THE GIRL OF COLONIAL DAYS WHO HEARD THE FIRST GUN
FIRED FOR INDEPENDENCE

A small, shapely foot clad in silken hose and satin slipper of palest
gray was thrust from under flowing petticoats of the same pale shade,
as Dorothy Quincy stepped daintily out of church on a Sabbath Day in
June after attending divine service.

John Hancock, also coming from church, noted the small foot with
interest, and his keen eye traveled from the slipper to its owner's
lovely face framed in a gray bonnet, in the depths of which nestled a
bunch of rosebuds. From that moment Hancock's fate as a man was as
surely settled as was his destiny among patriots when the British
seized his sloop, the _Liberty_.

But all that belongs to a later part of our story, and we must first
turn back the pages of history and become better acquainted with that
young person whose slippered foot so diverted a man's thoughts from
the sermon he had heard preached on that Lord's Day in June.