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As when across the sky the driving rack of the rain-cloud

Grows for a moment thin, and betrays the sun by its brightness.

Once it had lifted its hand, and moved its lips, but was silent,

As if an iron will had mastered the fleeting intention.

But when were ended the troth and the prayer and the last benediction,

Into the room it strode, and the people beheld with amazement

Bodily there in his armour Miles Standish, the Captain of Plymouth!

Grasping the bridegroom's hand, he said with emotion, "Forgive me!

I have been angry and hurt,-too long have I cherished the feeling;

I have been cruel and hard, but now, thank God! it is ended.

Mine is the same hot blood that leaped in the

veins of Hugh Standish,

Sensitive, swift to resent, but as swift in atoning for error.

Never so much as now was Miles Standish the

friend of John Alden."

Thereupon answered the bridegroom: "Let all be forgotten between us,

All save the dear, old friendship, and that shall grow older and dearer!"

Then the Captain advanced, and, bowing, saluted Priscilla,

Gravely and after the manner of old-fashioned gentry in England,

Something of camp and of court, of town and of country, commingled,

Wishing her joy of her wedding, and loudly lauding her husband.

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Then he said with a smile: "I should have re

membered the adage,

If you would be well served, you must serve yourself; and moreover,

No man can gather cherries in Kent at the sea

son of Christmas!"

Great was the people's amazement, and

greater yet their rejoicing,

Thus to behold once more the sun-burnt face

of their Captain,

Whom they had mourned as dead; and they

gathered and crowded about him,

Lager to see him and hear him, forgetful of bride and of bridegroom,

Questioning, answering, laughing, and each interrupting the other,

Till the good Captain declared, being quite overpowered and bewildered,

Ile had rather by far break into an Indian encampment,

Than come again to a wedding to which he had not been invited.

Meanwhile the bridegroom went forth and stood with the bride at the doorway, Breathing the perfumed air of that warm and beautiful morning.

Touched with autumnal tints, but lonely and sad in the sunshine,

Lay extended before them the land of toil and privation;

There were the graves of the dead, and the barren waste of the sea-shore,

There the familiar fields, the groves of pine, and the meadows;

But to their eyes transfigured, it seemed as the Garden of Eden,

Filled with the presence of God, whose voice

was the sound of the ocean.

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