had seen nothing finer than the lodges of her father's
towns, it was a very grand structure indeed, with its solid framework of
oak, its four rooms, its chimney of brick and its furnishings sent over
from London. Her husband had promised her that they should bring back
many other wonderful arrangements when they returned from England.

She was a little warm from her climb and was looking forward to the
moment when she could discard her clothes for her loose buckskin robe
and moccasins. Rolfe, though he did not forbid them altogether, was not
pleased at the sight of them; and Pocahontas this day was conscious of a
slight feeling of relief that there were to be several days of his
absence in which she could forget to be an Englishwoman.

She might forget for a while but only for a while for she was a happy
and dutiful wife; but she could never forget that she was a mother, that
her wonderful little Thomas, not so white as his father, nor so dark as
herself, was waiting for her at the house. She hurried on, thinking of
the fun she would have with him: how she would take him down to a stream
and let him lie naked on the warm rocks, and how she would sing Indian
songs to him and tell him stories of the beasts in the woods, even if he
were too little to understand them.

She had left him in his cradle where, protected by its high sides, he
was safe for hours at a time, and the workmen who were helping her
husband start a tobacco plantation at Varina looked in often to see if
he were all right.

She entered the house and hurrying to the cradle, called out:

"Little Rabbit, here I am."

But when she bent over the side, behold! the cradle was empty.

She looked in every room, but found no sign of him. Then she rushed to
the door and called. Three of the men came running, and they told her,
speaking one on top of the other, how half an hour after she and their
master had left one of them had gone to look at the child and found the
cradle empty. Since then they had been searching the place over, but
with no success.

It was quite impossible for the child to have got away alone; yet who
would take him away? Indians or white folk, there was none in all
Virginia who would dare injure the grandchild of Powhatan.

When she had listened to what they had to say, Pocahontas bade them go
and continue their search. When she was alone she sat down, not on the
carven chair a carpenter had made her in Jamestown, but on the floor, as