Of the ninety who had arrived two weeks before, the greater number had found husbands in the town itself or in the neighboring hundreds, so that in the crowd that had gathered to withstand the Spaniard, and had stayed to welcome the King's favorite, there were farthingales not a few.
But there were none like the woman whose hand I had kissed in the courting meadow.

In the throng, that day, in her Puritan dress and amid the crowd of meaner beauties, she had passed without overmuch comment, and since that day none had seen her save Rolfe and the minister, my servants and myself; and when "The Spaniard!" was cried, men thought of other things than the beauty of women; so that until this moment she had escaped any special notice.

Now all that was changed.

The Governor, following the pointing of those insolent eyes, fixed his own upon her in a stare of sheer amazement; the gold-laced quality about him craned necks, lifted eyebrows, and whispered; and the rabble behind followed their betters' example with an emphasis quite their own.
"Where do you suppose that jewel went, Sir Governor," said the favorite,--"that jewel which was overnice to shine at court, which set up its will against the King's, which would have none of that one to whom it had been given ?" "I am a plain man, my lord," replied the Governor bluntly.

"An it please you, give me plain words." My lord laughed, his eyes traveling round the ring of greedily intent faces.