l presently
followed her. Far in the woods he came upon her seated at the foot of a
great tulip-tree. The basket at her side was full of club moss and gaily
tinted toadstools. The red and yellow leaves of maple and oak, falling
on her hair and her gray gown, made, as it seemed to him, a pleasant
picture.

De Courval threw himself at her feet on the ground covered with autumn's
lavished colors.

"We have nothing like this in France. How wonderful it is!"

"Yes," she said; "it is finer than ever I saw it." Then, not looking up,
she added, after a pause, the hands he watched still busy: "Why didst
thou not bring me any goldenrod last evening? I asked thee."

"I saw none."

"Ah, but there is still plenty, or at least there are asters. I think
thou must have been gathering _pensees_, as thy mother calls them;
pansies, we say."

"Yes, thoughts, thoughts," he returned with sudden gravity--"_pensees_."

"They must have been of my cousin Shippen or of Fanny Cadwalader, only
she is always laughing." This young woman, who still lives in all her
beauty on Stuart's canvas, was to end her life in England.

"Oh, neither, neither," he said gaily, "not I. Guess better."

"Then a quiet Quaker girl like--ah--like, perhaps, Deborah Wharton."

He shook his head.

"No? Thou art hard to please," she said. "Well, I shall give them
up--thy _pensees_. They must have been freaked with jet; for how serious
thou art!"

"What is that--freaked with jet?"

She laughed merrily. "Oh, what ignorance! That is Milton,
Monsieur--'Lycidas.'" She was gently proud of superior learning.

"Ah, I must ask Mr. Schmidt of it. I have much to learn."

"I would," and her hands went on with their industry of selecting the
more brilliantly colored leaves. "I have given thee something to think
of. Tell me, now, what were the thoughts of jet in thy _pensees_--the
dark thoughts."

"I cannot tell thee. Some day thou wilt know, and that may be too soon,
too soon"; for he thought: "If I kill that man, what will they think of
revenge, of the guilt of blood, these gentle Quaker people?" Aloud he
said: "You cannot think these thoughts of mine, and I am glad you
cannot."

He was startled as she returned quickly, without looking up from her
work: "How dost thou know what I think? It is something that will
happen," and, the white hands moving with needless quickness among the
gaily tinted leaves, she added: "I do not like change, or new things, or
mysteries.