own."

"'I promised thee news of my welfare so soon as opportunity should serve
to send it.'"--

"Well?"

--"'And now I would have thee know that I find none to take thy place in
my heart or eyes'"--

The young man laid down his pen, and with a sterner look upon his face
than the teasing girl had ever seen there, rose from the table saying,--

"I did not deem thee so unmaidenly, Priscilla, as to ask a man who loves
thee to write thy love-messages to one thou favorest more highly. 'T is
not well done, mistress, neither modest nor kind."

"I wonder at thy hardihood, John Alden, putting such reproach upon me.
Never think again that I will listen to thy wooing after such insult,
and thou stupid oaf, did I not tell thee that the letter was to Jeanne
De la Noye, my dear girl-friend in Leyden?"

"Nay, thou toldst me no such thing."

"Well, I tell thee now, and thou mayst put Jeanne after 'my
well-beloved' at the top, an' thou wilt. Art satisfied now, thou
quarrelsome fellow?"

"Satisfied that thou wilt bring me to an untimely grave, thou wicked
girl!"

"Well, then sit down and finish my letter before thou seekest that same
grave, for the shadow creeps on apace. Nay, now, I will be good, good
John."

"Ah well-a-day, I am indeed an oaf, as thou sayest, to be so wrought
upon by a coy maid's smiles or frowns, but have thy will mistress, have
thy will."

"Nay now, John, cannot a big, brave fellow like thee take a poor maid's
folly more gently? Think then, dear John, of how forlorn a maid it is;
think of the graves under yon springing wheat"--

"There, there, dear heart, forgive my rude brutishness; forgive me,
sweet one, or I shall go out and do some injury to myself or another,
thou hast so stirred my sluggish heart"--

But a peal of laughter, rich and sweet as a bob-o-link's song, cut short
his speech, and Priscilla dashing away the tears that hung in her archly
curved eyelashes exclaimed,--

"_Thy_ sluggish heart, John! Why, thy heart is like an open tub of
gunpowder, and all my poor thoughtless words seem sparks to kindle it!
Well, then, sith both are sorry, and both fain would be friends, let us
get on with my fond messages to Jeanne and her sister Marie, or I shall
have to put away my paper hardly the worse for thy work."

"Well, then, thou honey bee, as sweet as thy sting is sharp, what next?"

"Tell her in thine own words how long we were cooped in yon
vile-smelling old tub, and how when we landed, Ma