e depths of abject submission, and trying to seize her hand
exclaimed,--

"Oh sweetheart, thou knowest only too well that hand and heart and all I
have are thine if thou wilt but take them."

"Nay, John, thou must not speak so, no, nor touch my hand until I give
it thee of mine own free will"--

"Until? Nay, that means that some time thou wilt give it!"

"Well, then, I don't say until, and if thou dost pester me I'll say
never. And I'll ask John Howland to write my letter."

"Stay, stay Priscilla! If 't is a letter to be written let me write it,
for I was the first one asked, and I'll not pester thee, lass. I am a
patient man by nature, and I'll bide thy good pleasure."

"There, now, that's more sensible, and as my own time runs short as well
as thine, sit down at the corner of the table here--hast thy ink-horn
with thee? Ay, well, here is paper ready, and we have time before I must
make supper."

"Yes, an hour or more," said John looking at some marks upon the window
ledge cut to show the shadows cast at noon, at sunrise, and at sunset at
this time in the year. Priscilla meantime had arranged the writing
materials upon the corner of the heavy oaken table with its twisted legs
and cross pieces still to be seen in Pilgrim Hall in Plymouth as Elder
Brewster's table, and drawing up two new-made oaken stools, for the
elder's chair in the chimney-corner was not to be lightly or profanely
occupied, she said,--

"Come now, Master Alden, I am ready."

"I would thou wert ready," murmured John, but as the blooming face
remained bent over the table, and the very shoulders showed cold
indifference, he continued hastily as he seated himself,--

"And so am I ready. To whom shall I address the letter?"

"Methinks I would first put time and place at the head of the sheet. So
have I noted that letters are most commonly begun."

"Ay. Well, then, here is:--

"'The Settlement of New Plymouth, March the 21st inst. A. D. 1620.'" For
thus in Old Style did John Alden count the date we now should set at
March 31st, 1621. And having written it in the queer crabbed Saxon
script we find so hard to decipher he inquired,--

"And what next, Mistress Priscilla?"

"Next, Master John, thou mayest set down,"--

"'My well beloved'"--

"Well, who is thy well beloved?" demanded John pen in hand and flame on
cheek.

"Nay, the name is of no importance," replied Priscilla coldly. "Let us
go on."

"Very well, 'My well beloved,' is set d