and my own footsteps, feeling like a guilty creature, until finally I come to Great-grandmother Davenne's trunk; big, studded all over in intricate, patterns with brass-headed nails, with a fine plate on the top, lettered thus, in German text: "Mistress Susan Davenne, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America." The lock, alas! hangs by a single screw, and here lie the treasures of "Mistress Susan" freely exposed to the prying fingers of her namesake and descendant. First a rich green parasol, with a top carved in the resemblance of a pagoda, two monstrous linen pockets stuffed full of yellowing point-lace; I cram this into my own pocket with a consciousness of theft. Why did not Elizabeta or Dora seek out these treasures instead of paying Madame Ledue fabulous sums for dyeing their laces, I wonder? Then four petticoats, about the width of a yard each, ruffled and laced-how did my respected ancestor ever enter or descend from her coach ?—a pair of tiny pink satin slippers. I kick off my own and, no-yes, my foot goes into the little thing as though it had been made for it, and I inspect my chaussure with no ill-pleased eyes. Three or four embroidered India muslins, and a sea-green satin dressing-gown lined with rose. Am I to find no dress for my first ball, after all? What is this sewn up by careful fingers in an immense linen sheet ? What but "Mistress Susan's" court-dress, the one in which she was presented at the Court of St. James, and the one in which I shall present myself before the eyes of her Majesty's loyal subject, the Viscount Castlemaine. I shake out the splendid folds in a hurry of delight-a pink satin petticoat, stiff and-just the right length for me; a blue train shot with silver and embroidered with wonderful little roses and lilies, and a bodice to match, with a cluster of pink-and-blue feathers wrapped up in Mistress Susan's presentation vail and tucked in the sleeve thereof. Clearly I was born under a fortunate star, and could scarcely refrain from laughing aloud as I crept cautiously down the garret-stairs with my prizes, along the hall, down the next flight, and so into my own room. ! The 22d of February—the night of the 22d of February, 1876 Half-past nine o'clock. I had just seen Elizabeth and Dora off with Uncle Ralph and Colonel Jamieson and Mr Stuart. I was promised a fine and accurate description of everything, and was biddon not to sit up, for they should not be home until morning. The door once closed on my relatives and their escorts, I flew on the wings of the wind to my room, pulled my treasures from their hiding-place, where they had lain in ambush for three whole days and nights, between the mattresses, and carefully withdrawn at night, lest my weight should spoil the century-old darlings. In twenty minutes I was ready; the pink satin 'slippers OL my feet, the stiff satin petticoat and the brocaded train, in which I took special delight, and to which I had added the two poin-lace flounces; the bodice fitted me to a nicety. I had arranged my hair like my cousins, and had powdered it in the most artistic manner, adding to the fluffy structure the pink-and-blue feathers that had been sleeping so long in Mistress Susan's sleeve. I had spent my entire stock of pocket-money, too, in a pair of long white gloves and a pink mask. Jewels I had none. Even those I bad I feared to wear, lest Elizabeth or Dora should recognize them. |-I, who trembled at my own shadow in the dark-was about to venture. For a second my heart forsook me; for a second I wondered what I should do when I got there, and I had almost made up my mind to sink into oblivion and stay at home. I glanced at the mirror-what was I but a weak little woman, and the sight of Mistress Susan's finery gave me a wonderful new courage. I wrapped my waterproof tightly about me, pinned my cape over my head, thanked the fates that it was a clear, dry night, slipped down the stairs and out into the broad street almost before I had time to realize what manner of feat this was that I was performing. I fairly flew down the two blocks, dashed around the corner, nearly ran into a burly policeman, beheld a hundred carriages, heard shouts, and saw lights dazzling from every window of Mrs. General Ward's big house, squeezed my way between a couple of footmen, ran up the half-dozen wide marble steps, paused for a moment breathless, and then the spirit of Mistress Susan must have been lurking in those little satin shoes, for suddenly her unworthy great-grandchild came to a stately stop. I held my mask aside for the challenging attendant, passed up the garlanded staircase to the ladies' dressingroom, and therein beheld my cousins, the Misses Davenne, pirouetting lightly before the mirrors, unconscious at the moment of "Sue's" mere existence. Ignorant as a baby, I had nothing but my wits to guide me, and, with trembling fingers, I pulled out my powdered curls, straightened my feathers, and acquiesced in the attentions of the maid to my point-lace flounces. How to get down into the ballroom unattended? But once in the maze I was not to be daunted by any amount of twists and unexpected developments. I watched Elizabeth and Dora sail past me with paps, quite resplendent in his Continental uniform, Colonel Jamieson and Mr. Stuart also doing duty; and then I plucked up my fast-failing courage, and sailed down, too, in the wake of a dowager with four daughters in white silk masks, who were sans cavalier. I thought that one daughter more or less could make no sort of difference to the fat old lady, and in five minutes I had lost sight of her and her offspring-was in the ballroom, flushing under the pink satin, flirting Mistress Susan's big laced fan, and listening to a very soft strong voice that was pleading in my ear for the next dance. The voice, I have said, was soft and strong, the eyes were dark-blue and searching, shining through the ugly little holes of his black mask. The dress was faultless in my eyes then and now, the uniform of a colonel in the Royal Hussars setting off to miraculous advantage the most superb man's figure in the room. It would take me too long to rehearse the events of those three delicious hours between ten and one o'clock, for at that point my bliss came to an abrupt determination. In the arms of the huzzar colonel I had floated past my cousins twenty times. I had vainly endeavored to place him-to find out who he was; and he had more strenuously and as vainly tried to discover my identity, and had implored me a hundred times to give him one glimpse of my cheek alone. "You might as well, you know," he whispered, coaxingly, "for in the end I shall see your face-only give me a half-hour's start of everybody else ?" What this meant I was at a loss to understand, but, alas! too soon was I to learn the meaning of his words. We were sauntering arm-in-arm the length of the marble Without a cavalier, in the dark, chilly Winter's night, I hallway, I with my seventeen-year-old senses steeped in a PLYMOUTH AND ITS PILGRIM MEMORIES.- THE DEPARTURE OF THE PILGRIMS FROM DELFT.-SEE PAGE 166. kind of dolce far niente, as delicious as it was novel-the lights, the music, the perfume of the flowers, the presence of this man, with his devoted, care-taking ways and his craving eyes, the splendid newness of my position, the audacity and success of my exploit ! There stood Elizabeth and Dora in the arched doorway, talking together. I could hear them as we swept past. "Who can she be? The idea of Lord Castlemaine's haunting one girl so the whole night! I do not think it looks well." I hear no more of Dora's speech. So this is the duke's son of whom I spoke not three days since with such ferocious scorn. "Five-no, three minutes to one! Now, I shall see you at last, my cruel little beauty! You cannot help yourself!" "What do you mean?' "Mean! Why, that one o'clock is the hour for unmasking, just before supper, you know; and, see, the hands are pointing the hour now!" Oh, great-grandmother mine! was there ever such an ignorant little fool as this namesake of yours? I saw every one doing as my huzzar colonel had done, as I cast one terrified glance from his handsome face to the people about me. The great door stood open, and I-with but the memory of the Misses Davenne standing like statues awaiting the disclosure of my features-ran, ran as fast and furious as I could, never stopping until I reached home, slipped my stolen night-key in the lock, fled to my room, tore off my finery, and found that, like Cinderella in the old fairy-tale, I had lost one of Mistress Susan's pink satin shoes in my flight! * * Before my cousins were up in the morning, every trace and vestige of powder had been rubbed and brushed from my hair, and every scrap of my ancestor's wardrobe carefully replaced in the brass-nailed trunk. I managed to listen with a becoming calm to the account of the ball-the splendor of the dresses, the singular inci He hastily pulls off his own mask, and then puts up his dent of the lady in a superb costume who had flirted outhand to mine. "Permit me." rageously with Viscount Castlemaine, and who had actually run off when it was time to unmask; the young thing was town-talk, of course, already, and every one was crazy to find out who she was, Figuratively speaking, I patted myself on the head, and was pleased that at least my first, last and only appearance in "society" had produced a genuine sensation. But when the announcement was made that his lordship had been invited by Uncle Ralph to call, and signified his entire willingness to do so, my sensations were of a somewhat mingled nature. Could I meet those searching eyes with a calm, unblushing face? Alas! time showed. One Thursday evening we were sitting cozily around the libraryfire. Listlessly I had been listening to Dora's description of somebody's new Paris hats, when Thomas came in with cards"Colonel Jamieson "-"Castlemaine." PILGRIM HALL. My eyes met the searching, dark-blue ones of the duke's son, and I knew not why or wherefore, but then and there I felt as though my will was quietly submerged in that of this English gentleman. They talked of a thousand ALLYN HOUSE. Elizabeth rose, in her quiet, dignified way, but Dora flattered a little as his lordship entered the room. I? sat quite still with drooped eyelids, and every drop of my warm blood in my cheeks as "Viscount Castlemaine" was duly presented to "Miss Sue Davenne." things, and naturally gravitated toward Mrs. Ward's ball, the delights thereof, and the unknown lady, and how she still remained unknown, baffling every effort to discover her-and his lordship laughed as Colonel Jamieson spoke. "The greatest romance out, I assure you, Miss Dora. Castlemaine, here, has one of the fair incognita's slippers-a Cinderellaish sort of an affair, no bigger than my hand-and he swears to marry the lady who can wear it." "Her slipper!-how did you get it ?" "How very extraordinary a young person!" "She dropped it in her flight. Here it is!" Castlemaine draws Miss Susan's pink satin shoe from his inner pocket and hands it to my cousin. "Very small-but, then, she was a very small womanquite an old-fashioned slipper, too. No heel; and made in Paris !" "It is a very small shoe, but she was not so very small & woman, Miss Dora-no smaller, I should say, than your cousin, Miss Sue, for example." The searching eyes are fastened upon my face, and upon the instant I resolve that his lordship must never see my feet. "Oh, very, very much smaller! You are mistaken!" cries Dora. And then they drift, thank fortune! into other topics. Cards with "Castlemaine " scrawled boldly across them come to be things of very frequent occurrence at our house, and sometimes I think Dora is to get her heart's desire an eventual coronet. The Misses Davenne are to give an entertainment, at which I am to make my first-ob, much-deceived relatives! -appearance in the "world." | gravity, and kisses my lips, my chin, my forehead, eyes and cheeks. "Sue, I have taken you, and whatever I take is never, by any chance, taken away from me." He pulls off the pink shoe, puts on my white one, draws my arm possessively through his, and remarks, casually, that "we will go in and dance." Castlemaine has Mistress Susan's shoe in his hand as we re-enter the drawing-room. "I have found her," he says, significantly to Colonel Jamieson, and then we dance once more together. Face to face? Ay! So, ever face to face with his lordship I am content to be. Will you believe it? He carries Mistress Susan's little pink slipper about in his breast-pocket to this day, and is thoroughly convinced that no woman ever had as small a foot as that same Mistress Susan Davenne and her un No pink and azure satins, no soft, powdered hair and quivering plumes, no point lace. A cream-colored silk, with fringes of forget-me-nots, and my hair done in a mag-worthy descendant-Sue, Viscountess Castlemaine. nificent, towering structure, has been decided upon as the fitting garb for portionless Miss Sue to début in. Castlemaine is to be there-is there, in brief-and I would rather anything than dance. I will not dance, in point of fact, because he has declared more than once in my hearing that, should he ever get one glimpse of a foct to fit his little satin shoe, he should know it to a certainty. I dance until he comes, and then suddenly plead indisposition, heat, not being used to such things, and the like. I get away by myself in the library, and begin to wonder -woe's me! so soon the ball loses its gilding-where the infinite joy of society lies? As Elizabeth wisely said, "Quite a bore after the first few"-nay, after the very first time. "Miss Sue, I've been looking for you. Won't you come and dance with me?" "Thanks. I don't care to dance any more this evening." "You are rather unkind, I think. We have neverdanced-together." His lordship speaks very slowly, and as slowly but surely I feel the blood surging to my face. "At least, never face to face." The searching eyes are fastened upon mine, holding them prisoned, and looking straightly into their blue, laughing depths. TO THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE CRICKET. Catching your heart up at the feel of June, With those who think the candles come too soon, Oh, sweet and tiny cousins, that belong, One to the fields, the other to the hearth, In doors and out, Summer and Winter, Mirth. PLYMOUTH AND ITS PILGRIM MEMORIES. PLYMOUTH, where our forefathers landed from the Mayflower on that memorable Monday morning in the year of grace 1620, is three hours from Boston by rail. Duxbury, where the bold Captain Myles Standish spent the declinI sink down into a chair in sheer terror, and the tell- ing years of his life, lies on the left, "Captain's Hill," tale foot that his lordship has said so often he would know with its unfinished Standish Monument, standing out in among ten thousand must, I suppose, have made itself vis- bold relief. Clarke's Island, a long strip of land devoid of ible, for the pink slipper of dead and gone Mistress Susan foliage, where the Pilgrims spent their first Sabbath, is out of his pocket in an instant; he is kneeling before stretches between Duxbury and the mainland. The headme, has taken off my high-heeled white shoe, and has re- lands of Saquish and Gurnet, the latter the proud posplaced the pink one on the foot that lost it in ignomini-sessor of twin lighthouses, break the coast, while directly ous flight on the night of the 22d of February last. opposite the wooded bluff of Manomet thrusts itself into "I thought I knew my little lady's voice and figure and the bay, and nearer the thin ribbon of Plymouth Beach naughty eyes, but now I am sure." He kneels there still, with my foot in Mistress Susan's pink shoe resting in the palm of his hand. "You ought not-you have no right to" I feel that I am going to disgrace myself and cry. "Give me the right, then," Castlemaine says, very earnestly, while he drops my ancestor's slipper and catches my trembling hands in his. "Why, little Sue, I love you, and you must promise to let me hope, to let me believe, that I can take my wife back to England with me. Can't you?" I shake my head. Futile visions of Dora, of being too easily won, of maidenly reserve, rush pell-mell through my brain. But his lordship stoops over with a most audacious blocks the harbor like an artificial break water. On the 22d of July, 1620, the Speedwell, with its little band of Christian heroes, left the haven of Delft for England. A prosperous wind rapidly bore the vessel across the channel to the British coast, and they entered the port of Southampton. Here they found a party of English emigrants who had chartered a vessel, the Mayflower, of one hundred and twenty tons. All things being ready, both vessels weighed anchor and put to sea from Southampton on the 5th of August. In the two vessels there were about 120 passengers. They had gone but about 100 miles when the captain of the Speedwell announced that his ship had sprung a leak, and that he did not dare to continue the voyage without having her examined and repaired. Both vessels therefore put into Dartmouth, losing a fair wind, and time which, with the rapidly passing Summer weather, was invaluable to them. They were detained for more than a week, searching out the leaks and mending them. About the 21st of August the two vessels again set sail. They had been out but a day or two when it appeared that the Speedwell had sprung a leak, of so serious a character that, though diligently plying the pumps, they could scarcely keep her afloat. Nothing was to be done but to put back again to Plymouth, the nearest English port. Here the Speedwell was carefully examined, and pronounced to be, from general weakness, unseaworthy. The whole number of persons who took their departure from Dartmouth, in the one solitary vessel, the Mayflower, for the New World, amounted to 102. Among these passengers there was a marked man, Captain Miles Standish. He was a native of Lancashire, England-a gentleman born, and the legitimate heir to a large estate. He had been for some time an officer in one of the British regiments, which had garrisoned a town in the Netherlands. He was not a church member, and we know not what induced him to unite with the pilgrims in their perilous enterprise, but it is certain that he was very highly esteemed and very cordially welcomed by them. His military skill might prove of great value to the infant colony. Nothing of special moment occurred during the voyage, which was tedious, occupying sixty-four days. Very rough storms were encountered, often with head-winds, and the frail vessel was sorely strained and wrenched by the gale and surge. It was in the morning of Saturday, November 11th, that the Mayflower, rounding the white sand cliffs of what is now Provincetown, on the extremity of Cape Cod, entered the bay on the Western side of the Cape, where she cast anchor. Just before entering this harbor the pilgrims had drawn up a brief constitution of civil government, upon the basis of republicanism, by which they mutually bound themselves to be governed. This was the germ of the American Constitution. John Carver they had unanimously chosen as their Governor for one year. That afternoon a party of sixteen men, well armed, under Captain Miles Standish, was sent on shore to explore the country in their immediate vicinity. They returned in the early evening with rather a discouraging report. On Sunday their pastor, the Rev. William Brewster-a man of fervent piety and of highly cultivated mind, who had graduated at Cambridge University, preached from the deck of the Mayflower. In their temple, whose majestic dome was the overarching skies, their hymns blended with the moan of the wintry wind and the dash of the surge on the rock-bound shore. The pilgrims had taken the precaution to bring with them a large shallop, whose framework, but partially put together, was stowed away in the hold of the vessel. They now got out these pieces, and their carpenter commenced vigorously the work of preparing the boat for service. It would require some days to put the shallop in order for a tour of exploration along the shore. There were twenty-eight females among the emigrants. Eighteen of these were married women, accompanying their husbands. These females, attended by a strong guard of armed men, were landed on Monday morning to wash the soiled clothes which had accumulated through the long voyage. In the meantime, while these labors were being performed, Captain Miles Standish, on Wednesday morning, the 15th of November, set out with a party of fifteen men, well armed and provisioned, for a more extended tour of exploration. It was Friday afternoon, November 17th, when the expedition returned with rent clothes and blistered feet, and with a discouraging report; for they had found no place suitable for the location of their colony. On Monday of the next week, the 27th of November, twenty-four of the colonists and ten of the seamen, in the shallop, all under command of Captain Jones, again set out in search of a spot where they might commence their lonely settlement in the wilderness. At Pamet Creek they found a sheltered cove, which they called Cold Harbor. A party landed at the foot of the cliff and marched into the interior, between the streams, four or five miles. The question was then very earnestly and anxiously discussed, whether they should decide upon Cold Harbor for their settlement, or send out another expedition on an exploring tour. A party of ten picked men, among whom were Governor Carver and William Bradford, set out in the shallop in the afternoon of the 6th of December, in order to select some spot on which to establish their colony. They were well armed and provisioned, and it was certain that they would leave nothing untried which human energy could accomplish. It was a perilous enterprise in the dead of Winter, in a comparatively open boat upon a storm-swept sea. Having landed at night, they wisely erected barricades, and, being very weary, they betook themselves to rest. "But about midnight they heard a hideous and great cry, and their sentinel called 'arm! arm!' So they bestirred themselves and stood to their arms and shot off a couple of muskets, and then the noise ceased. "But presently, all on the sudden, they heard a great and strange cry, which they knew to be the same voices which they heard in the night, though they varied their notes; and one of their company being abroad, came running in and cried: 'Indians! Indians !' Immediately a shower of arrows fell upon the encampment. The men ran with all speed to recover their arms, as by the providence of God they succeeded in doing.' The thick Winter garments of the pilgrims and their coats of mail effectually protected a large portion of their bodies from the arrows of the natives. The escape of the pilgrims, unharmed, from this shower of missiles, was indeed wonderful. The arrows of the Indians were thrown with great force, and being pointed with flint and bone, would, when hitting, pierce the thickest clothing. The pilgrims re-embarked in a bitter sleet storm. At last they discerned land directly before them. Whether it were an island or a promontory they knew not. By great exertions they succeeded-though it was very dark and the rain fell in torrents-in gaining the lee of the land. Here they cast anchor in comparatively still water. During the night the clouds were dispersed. The morning dawned serene and bright, but cold. It was the morning of the Sabbath. They named this spot, where they had found a brief refuge from the storm, Clark's Island, in honor of the captain of the Mayflower. The Pilgrims, having passed the Sabbath in rest and devotion upon the island, early the next morning repaired their shattered boat, and spreading their sails again to the wintry winds continued their cruise. Soon a large bay |