After the feast was over the bride said to her husband, using his Christian name shyly for the first time:

"John, wilt thou walk with me into the forest a little?"

And Rolfe, nothing loath to escape the noisy crowd, rose to go with her.

"Why dost thou care to come here?" he asked when they found themselves beyond the causeway in the woods flecked with the white of the innumerable dogwood trees.

"Because I feel Jamestown too small to-day, John; because I have ever sought the forest when I was happy or sad; because it seemeth to me that the trees and beasts would be hurt if I did not let them see me this great day."

"'Tis a pretty fancy, but a pagan one, my child," said Rolfe, frowning slightly.

But Pocahontas did not notice. She had caught a glimpse across the leafy branches of the spotted sides of a deer, and she saw a striped chipmunk peer at her from overhead.

"Hey! little friends," she called out gaily to them, "here's Pocahontas come to greet ye. Wish her happiness, that her nest may be filled with nuts. Little Dancer, and cool shade, Bright Eyes, in hot noondays." Then as two wood pigeons flew by she clapped her hands gently together and cried:

"Here's my mate, Swift Wings, wish us happiness."

And John Rolfe, sober Englishman that he was, felt uprise in him a new kinship with all the breathing things of the world, and he wondered whether this Indian maiden he had made his wife did not know more of the secrets of the earth than the wise men of Europe.