e,
I should also have feared. Those who have ever witnessed a sea-island
witch-dance can bear me out, and I think a man may dread a hag and be no
coward either. But distance and time allay the memories of such uncanny
works. I had forgotten whether I was afraid or not. So I said, "There
are no witches, Dorothy."

She looked at me, dreamily. "There are none ... that I fear."

"Not even Catrine Montour?" I asked, to plague her.

"No; it turns me cold to think of her running in the forest, but I am
not afraid."

She stood pensive in the doorway, rolling and unrolling her embroidery.
Harry and Cecile came out, flourishing alder poles from which lines and
hooks dangled. Samuel and Benny carried birchen baskets and
shallow nets.

"If we're to have Mohawk chubbs," said Cecile, "you had best come with
us, Dorothy. Ruyven has a book and has locked himself in the play-room."

But Dorothy shook her head, saying that she meant to ride the boundary
with us; and the children, after vainly soliciting my company, trooped
off towards that same grist-mill in the ravine below the bridge which I
had observed on my first arrival at Varick Manor.

"I am wondering," said Dorothy, "how you mean to pass the morning. You
had best steer wide of Sir Lupus until he has breakfasted."

"I've a mind to sleep," I said, guiltily.

"I think it would be pleasant to ride together. Will you?" she asked;
then, laughing, she said, frankly, "Since you have come I do nothing but
follow you.... It is long since I have had a young companion, ... and,
when I think that you are to leave us, it spurs me to lose no moment
that I shall regret when you are gone."

No shyness marred the pretty declaration of her friendship, and it
touched me the more keenly perhaps. The confidence in her eyes, lifted
so sweetly, waked the best in me; and if my response was stumbling, it
was eager and warm, and seemed to please her.

"Tulip! Tulip!" she cried, "I want my dinner! Now!" And to me, "We will
eat what they give us; I shall dress in my buckskins and we will ride
the boundary and register the signs, and Sir Lupus and the others can
meet us at Sir George Covert's pleasure-house on the Vlaie. Does it
please you, Cousin George?"

I looked into her bright eyes and said that it pleased me more than I
dared say, and she laughed and ran up-stairs, calling back to me that I
should order our horses and tell Cato to tell Tulip to fetch meat and
claret to the gun-room.

I