Baring his hoary head, the excellent Elder of Plymouth

Said, "Let us pray!" and they prayed, and thanked the Lord and took courage. Mournfully sobbed the waves at the base of the rock, and above them

Bowed and whispered the wheat on the hill of death, and their kindred

Seemed to awake in their graves, and to join in the prayer that they uttered.

Sun-illumined and white, on the eastern verge of the ocean

Gleamed the departing sail, like a marble slab in a graveyard;

Buried beneath it lay forever all hope of escaping. Lo! as they turned to depart, they saw the form of an Indian,

Watching them from the hill; but while they spake with each other,

Pointing with outstretched hands, and saying, "Look!" he had vanished.

So they returned to their homes; but Alden lingered a little,

Musing alone on the shore, and watching the wash of the billows

Round the base of the rock, and the sparkle and flash of the sunshine,

Like the spirit of God moving visibly over the

waters.

VI.

PRISCILLA.

THUS for a while he stood, and mused by the shore of the ocean,

Thinking of many things, and most of all of Pris

cilla;

And as if thought had the power to draw to itself, like the loadstone,

Whatsoever it touches, by subtile laws of its nature, Lo! as he turned to depart, Priscilla was standing beside him.

"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

If

among many,

you make use of those common and complimen

tary phrases

Most men think so fine, in dealing and speaking

with women,

But which women reject as insipid, if not as insulting."

Mute and amazed 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 im

agined

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,