"No, thanks; it is only clean sand." A tuft of soft green grass furnished a ready mat, on which she wiped her small foot, not invisible to Burr while he modestly inspected the mussel shells and polished pebbles washed ashore by the plashing ripples. From the beach he picked a bone-like fragment resembling milky quartz. This he brought to the lady, who had chosen a mossy seat on the trunk of a fallen sycamore.
"It is a lucky-stone," she remarked. "It brings fortune."
"I will send it to Theodosia," said the finder, pocketing the treasure.
A pensive mood had succeeded the anxious wife's elation. She gazed across the river expectantly. Not a rowboat in sight, excepting a skiff lying alongside the scow.
"I fear he is having needless bother. How miserable! Our slaves are a burden, not worth the trifles they pilfer. I wish they would all run away, then we might have an excuse for flying."
"And could you leave your earthly paradise?"
"Yes; though I am attached to the island. I should regret to lose the trees, the river, the sky."
"Earth and sky stretch far. I sympathize with your feeling for the place. I told your husband it was like Bunyan's Enchanted Ground. Beulah, however, and the Delectable Mountains lie beyond the Enchanted Ground."
"More poetry!"
"Could I make verse, I would sing of October in the Ohio Valley, or of Indian Summer, which comes in November, don't it?"