el?"

"Ay--nay--in good sooth I know not, lad. I fain would know thine own
intentions, and I have them, but for myself--truth to tell, I care not
to wed again. I lived many years with only my good sword here as
sweetheart and comrade, and I was well stead, and--none can make good
the treasure late found and soon lost--but yet--come now, Will,
confidence for confidence, I'll tell thee somewhat"--

"Touching fair Mistress Priscilla?" asked Bradford with a smile of quiet
humor.

"Aha!" exclaimed Standish, a swarthy color mounting to his cheek. "'T is
common talk, then!"

"Well, I know not--certes I have heard it spoken on more than once, but
to say 'common talk'--we who are left alive are so few and so bound
together that 't is no more than a family, and the weal of each is
common to all."

"But what hast thou heard, in very truth?"

"Why, naught, except that Priscilla hath a sort of kindness for thee,
and thou hast, in a way, made her affairs thine own, and so 't was
naught but likely"--

"Ay, ay, I see, I ever had but an ill idea of great families, having
been born into one myself,--as thou sayest, the affairs of one are the
gossip of all."

"Nay, I said"--

"Pst, man, I know what thou saidst, and what I think, so hold thy peace.
Nay, then, this idle prating hath a certain foundation, as smoke aye
shows some little fire beneath, and I'll tell it thee. When William
Molines lay a-dying his mind was sore distraught at leaving his poor,
motherless maid alone, for his son Joseph had gone before him, so he
sent for me to watch with him that night, and somewhere in the small
hours we thought his time had come, and he besought me to promise that I
would take the maid under my keeping and not let her come to want. He
said naught of marriage, nor did I, for my wife was but then at rest,
and such speech would have been unseemly for him and hateful to me. I
took his words as they were spoken, and I gave my promise, and so far as
there was need I have kept it, and seen that the maid was housed and fed
and looked after by Mistress Brewster, but more, I thought not on."

"Master Molines was a discreet and careful man and seldom told out all
his thought," said Bradford astutely. "Methinks he counted upon 'the way
of a man with a maid,' and left it to thee to find out the most perfect
plan of caring for a young gentlewoman."

"Dost think so, Will? Dost think he meant me to take her to wife? Dost
think she so considers it?"