"Are you so much offended, you will not speak to me?" said she.
"Am I so much to blame, that yesterday, when you were pleading
Warmly the cause of another, my heart, impulsive and wayward,
Pleaded your own, and spake out, forgetful perhaps of decorum ?
Certainly you can forgive me for speaking so frankly, for saying
What I ought not to have said, yet now I can never unsay it;
For there are moments in life, when the heart is so full of emotion,
That if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths like a pebble
Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its secret,
Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gathered together.
Yesterday I was shocked, when I heard you speak of Miles Standish,
Praising his virtues, transforming his very defects into virtues,
Praising his courage and strength, and even his fighting in Flanders,
As if by fighting alone you could win the heart of a woman,
Quite overlooking yourself and the rest, in exalting your hero.
Therefore I spake as I did, by an irresistible impulse.

You will forgive me, I hope, for the sake of the friendship between us,
Which is too true and too sacred to be so easily broken!"
Thereupon answered John Alden, the scholar, the friend of Miles

Standish:

" I was not angry with you, with myself alone I was angry, Seeing how badly I managed the matter I had in my keeping." "No!" interrupted the maiden, with answer prompt and decisive; "No: you were angry with me, for speaking so frankly and freely. It was wrong, I acknowledge; for it is the fate of a woman Long to be patient and silent, to wait like a ghost that is speechless, Till some questioning voice dissolves the spell of its silence.

Hence is the inner life of so many suffering women
Sunless and silent and deep, like subterranean rivers
Running through caverns of darkness, unheard, unseen, and unfruitful,
Chafing their channels of stone, with endless and profitless murmurs."
Thereupon answered John Alden, the young man, the lover of women :
"Heaven forbid it, Priscilla; and truly they seem to me always
More like the beautiful rivers that watered the garden of Eden,
More like the river Euphrates, through deserts of Havilah flowing,
Filling the land with delight, and memories sweet of the garden !"
"Ah, by these words, I can see," again interrupted the maiden,
"How very little you prize me, or care for what I am saying.
When from the depths of my heart, in pain and with secret misgiving,
Frankly I speak to you, asking for sympathy only and kindness,
Straightway you take up my words, that are plain and direct and in
earnest,

Turn them away from their meaning, and answer with flattering phrases.
This is not right, is not just, is not true to the best that is in you;
For I know and esteem you, and feel that your nature is noble,
Lifting mine up to a higher, a more ethereal level.
Therefore I value your friendship, and feel it perhaps the more keenly
If you say aught that implies I am only as one among many,
If you make use of those common and complimentary phrases
Most men think so fine, in dealing and speaking with women,
But which women reject as insipid, if not as insulting."

Mute and amazèd was Alden; and listened and looked at Priscilla, Thinking he never had seen her more fair, more divine in her beauty.

He who but yesterday pleaded so glibly the cause of another,
Stood there embarrassed and silent, and seeking in vain for an answer.
So the maiden went on, and little divined or imagined

What was at work in his heart, that made him so awkward and speechless.

"Let us, then, be what we are, and speak what we think, and in all

things

Keep ourselves loyal to truth, and the sacred professions of friendship.
It is no secret I tell you, nor am I ashamed to declare it:

I have liked to be with you, to see you, to speak with you always.
So I was hurt at your words, and a little affronted to hear you

Urge me to marry your friend, though he were the Captain Miles
Standish.

For I must tell you the truth: much more to me is your friendship Than all the love he could give, were he twice the hero you think him." Then she extended her hand, and Alden, who eagerly grasped it,

Felt all the wounds in his heart, that were aching and bleeding so

sorely,

Healed by the touch of that hand, and he said, with a voice full of feeling:

"Yes, we must ever be friends; and of all who offer you friendship Let me be ever the first, the truest, the nearest and dearest!"

Casting a farewell look at the glimmering sail of the May Flower, Distant, but still in sight, and sinking below the horizon, Homeward together they walked, with a strange indefinite feeling, That all the rest had departed and left them alone in the desert.

But, as they went through the fields in the blessing and smile of the

sunshine,

Lighter grew their hearts, and Priscilla said very archly:
"Now that our terrible Captain has gone in pursuit of the Indians,
Where he is happier far than he would be commanding a household,
You may speak boldly, and tell me of all that happened between you,
When you returned last night, and said how ungrateful you found me."
Thereupon answered John Alden, and told her the whole of the story, -
Told her his own despair, and the direful wrath of Miles Standish.
Whereat the maiden smiled, and said between laughing and earnest,
"He is a little chimney, and heated hot in a moment!"

But as he gently rebuked her, and told her how much he had suffered, -
How he had even determined to sail that day in the May Flower,

And had remained for her sake on hearing the dangers that

threatened,

All her manner was changed, and she said with a faltering accent, "Truly I thank you for this: how good you have been to me always!"

Thus as a pilgrim devout, who toward Jerusalem journeys, Taking three steps in advance, and one reluctantly backward, Urged by importunate zeal, and withheld by pangs of contrition ; Slowly but steadily onward, receding yet ever advancing, Journeyed this Puritan youth to the Holy Land of his longings, Urged by the fervour of love, and withheld by remorseful misgivings.

G

VII.

THE MARCH OF MILES STANDISH.

MEANWHILE the stalwart Miles Standish was marching steadily north

ward,

Winding through forest and swamp, and along the trend of the sea

shore,

All day long, with hardly a halt, the fire of his anger

Burning and crackling within, and the sulphurous odour of powder

Seeming more sweet to his nostrils than all the scents of the forest.
Silent and moody he went, and much he revolved his discomfort;
He who was used to success, and to easy victories always,

Thus to be flouted, rejected, and laughed to scorn by a maiden,

Thus to be mocked and betrayed by the friend whom most he had

trusted!

Ah! 'twas too much to be borne, and he fretted and chafed in his armour!

"I alone am to blame," he muttered, "for mine was the folly. What has a rough old soldier, grown grim and grey in the harness, Used to the camp and its ways, to do with the wooing of maidens? 'Twas but a dream, -let it pass, - let it vanish like so many others! What I thought was a flower is only a weed, and is worthless; Out of my heart will I pluck it, and throw it away, and henceforward