Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1905-08-24

/ their lives on violins and working
4 breathlessly at the hautboys and all
| that gay company of yirginia's best.
spinning about in country dance Of
old England. Such brave show of
velvet coats and breeches and flow
cred brocade waistcoats and powder
ed wigs and feathers and laces and
ribbons and rich flaunts of petticoats
revealing In the whirl of the dance
clicked hose on slender ankles and
/ high heeled satin shoes would have
done no discredit to the court.
But of them al Mistress Mary Cav
endish was the belle and the star. She.
was dancing with my Lord Estes
when / entered. and such a goodly
couple they were that / heard many
! an exclamation Of delight from the
spectators who stood thickly about
the walls, the windows even being
filled with faces of black and white
servants. My Lord Estes was hand
some, dark man, handsomer and older
than Sir Humphrey Hyde, who, though
dancing with the governors daughter
Cate, had, could see, a rueful eye of
watchfulness toward Mary Caven-
| dish
AS he and Cate Culpeper swung past
me, Sir Humphreys eyes fell on my
face and he gave a start and blush,
and presently, when the dance was
over and his partner seated, came up
10 me with hand extended as if had
been the noblest guest there. Harry,
Harry he whispered eagerly, "she
hath danced with me three times to-
night and hath promised again; and,
Harry, saw you ever any one so beau
| tifuI as she in that blue dress?'
/ answered truthfully that | never
bad. Sir Humphrey, in his blue velvet
suit with the silver buttons with his
rosy face and powdered wig, was one
TO look at twice and yet again, and |
regarded him. as always. with that lik-
ing for him and that fury of Jealousy.
/ l looked at him and loved him as I
might have loved my son, with such a
sweet and brave honesty Of simplicity.
be eyed me and for the sake of Mary
Cayendish who might find his love for
her precious, and / wished with all my
heart that might fling him to the floor
where he stood. Every nerve and mus
lie in me tingled with the restraint of
the desire, for such an enhancement
of a woman's beauty as was Mary
lCavendish's that night will do away
with the best instincts of men wheth
er they will or not.
The next dance was the minuet, and
Mary Cayendish danced it with my
Lord Culpeper, the governor of Vir-
ginia The governor, though | liked
him not, was a most personable man
with much grace of manner which had
additional value from d certain harsh
ness of feature which led one not to
expect such suayity, and he was clad
most richly in such dazzle of gold
broidery and fling of yellow laces and
glitter of buttons as could not be sur
passed.
My lord was in fact clad much more
tichly than his wife and daughter.
whose attire though fair enough, was
not of the freshest. 1t was my good
luck to oyerhear my Lady Culpeper
ltelling in no very honeyed tones a gos-
sip Of hers, the lady of one of the
! burgesses, that her goods for which she
had sent to England had miscarrie.l,
anu we're it not for the fact that there
was a whisper of fever on the ship she
would have had the captain herself for
Ia good rating, and had my Lord Cul-
pepper not been for him, saying that the
nan was of an honest record, SIZE
would have had him set in the stocks
1 for his renissness that he had not seen
to it that her goods We're on board
when the Slip sailed
And there goes poor Cate in her old
murrey colored satin petticoat." said
my lady, with a bitter frightening of
her face. land there is Mary Cavendish
ia a blue lowered satin with silver.
which is the very twin of the one or
dered for Cate, and which came in on
the Cavendish ship"
WELL" said the other woman. who
was long and lean and had welded
| late in life a man she would have
scorned in her girlhood, and could not
forgive the wrong she had done her
self, and was filled with an inconsist-
ency of spleen toward all younger and
1 fairer than she, and who, moreover,
was born toad eater for all in high
places, tbs fine feathers make fine
birds, and were thy Cate arrayed in
that same gown in Mistress Caven-
dish's stead
"As l believe, she would not have
had the dress had not Cate told Cicely
Hyde. who is so intimate with Mary
Cavendish," said my Lady Culpeper. 4
had it from my lords sister that twas
the newest fashion in London. How
else would the chit have heard of it,
1 prayi"
4 How else, indeed?" asked the bur-
CESS wife.
/ sAna hero 49, nonr Csata ,nust on