quiet he still kept her hand in his, as he sat there waiting for the dawn.
He gave the child small thought. Together he and Juba must care for her
until they could rejoin the expedition: then the Governor, who was so fond
of children, might take her in hand, and give her for nurse old Dominick,
who was as gentle as a woman. Once at Germanna perhaps some scolding
_Hausfrau_ would take her, for the sake of the scrubbing and lifting to be
gotten out of those small hands and that slender frame. If not, she must
on to Williamsburgh and the keeping of the vestry there. The next Orphan
Court would bind her to some master or mistress who might (or might not)
be kind to her, and so there would be an end to the matter.

The day was breaking. Moon and stars were gone, and the east was dull
pink, like faded roses. A ribbon of silver mist, marking the course of the
stream below, drew itself like a serpent through the woods that were
changing from gray to green. The dank smell of early morning rose from the
dew-drenched earth, and in the countless trees of the forest the birds
began to sing.

A word or phrase which is as common and familiar as our hand may, in some
one minute of time, take on a significance and present a face so keen and
strange that it is as if we had never met it before. An Orphan Court!
Again he said the words to himself, and then aloud. No doubt the law did
its best for the fatherless and motherless, for such waifs and strays as
that which lay beside him. When it bound out children, it was most
emphatic that they should be fed and clothed and taught; not starved or
beaten unduly, or let to grow up ignorant as negroes. Sometimes the law
was obeyed, sometimes not.

The roses in the east bloomed again, and the pink of their petals melted
into the clear blue of the upper skies. Because their beauty compelled him