n the deep
waters. What this loss was to the husband and the little company of
brothers and sisters appears by no note or word of wailing, merely by a
simple entry which says no more than the record on a gravestone, that,
"on the 7th of December, Dorothy, wife of William Bradford, fell over and
was drowned."

That much-enduring company could afford themselves few tears. Earthly
having and enjoying was a thing long since dismissed from their
calculations. They were living on the primitive Christian platform; they
"rejoiced as though they rejoiced not," and they "wept as though they
wept not," and they "had wives and children as though they had them not,"
or, as one of themselves expressed it, "We are in all places strangers,
pilgrims, travelers and sojourners; our dwelling is but a wandering, our
abiding but as a fleeting, our home is nowhere but in the heavens, in
that house not made with hands, whose builder and maker is God."

When one of their number fell they were forced to do as soldiers in the
stress of battle--close up the ranks and press on.

But Mary Winslow, as she sat over her sewing, dropped now and then a tear
down on her work for the loss of her sister and counselor and long-tried
friend. From the lower part of the ship floated up, at intervals,
snatches of an old English ditty that Margery was singing while she moved
to and fro about her work, one of those genuine English melodies, full of
a rich, strange mournfulness blent with a soothing pathos:

"Fear no more the heat o' the sun
Nor the furious winter rages,
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone and ta'en thy wages."

The air was familiar, and Mary Winslow, dropping her work in her lap,
involuntarily joined in it:

"Fear no more the frown of the great,
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat,
To thee the reed is as the oak."

"There goes a great tree on shore!" quoth little Love Winslow, clapping
her hands. "Dost hear, mother? I've been counting the strokes--fifteen--
and then crackle! crackle! crackle! and down it comes!"

"Peace, darling," said Mary Winslow; "hear what old Margery is singing
below:

"Fear no more the lightning's flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash--
Thou hast finished joy and moan.
All lovers young--all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust."

"Why do you cry, mother?" said the little one, climbing on her lap and
wiping her