et a little table beside her precious invalid. "And to-morrow I
doubt not but I can offer you a posset of white flour and sugar and
spice and all sorts of comfortable things. Whatever the ship may be
't is sure to have the making of a posset in her."

"Oh Priscilla, dear maid, if it might be,--if I dared think of my two
girls"--

The trembling voice gave way, and for a moment Priscilla could not
speak. Then she cheerily said,--

"If not themselves there is sure to be news of them, and God is very
good. Pr'ythee take the broth."

"There then, good child. Now go to thine own supper. Mary is placing it
upon the board."

Dropping a light kiss upon the face lovingly upturned, Priscilla passed
into the outer room where upon the great table standing to-day in
Pilgrim Hall rested a wooden bowl filled with boiled clams, and beside
it a dish of coarse salt and a pewter flagon of water. Only this, no
bread, no vegetable, no after course; but at the head of the table stood
the elder, his worn face radiant with gratitude, as, uplifting his
voice, he gave thanks to God for that he and his might "suck of the
abundance of the seas and of the treasures hid in the sand."

After midnight a breeze sprung up, but the master of the Anne cautiously
waited for the full tide to float him over the many flats then as now
obstructing Plymouth Harbor, and it was not until another sunrise that
the travel-worn and over-crowded bark folded her patched sails and
dropped her anchor not far from the old anchorage ground of the
Mayflower.

The governor no longer tried to restrain the enthusiasm of his townsmen;
in fact, he himself helped to drag up the anchor of the pinnace and make
her ready for a visit to the stranger. With him went Jonathan Brewster
to see if perchance his sisters might be on board; and Doctor Fuller,
and Robert Hicks, and Francis Cooke, and William Palmer, and Master
Warren, albeit not fit even for so small an exertion, for every one of
these men thought it possible that his wife might be aboard, nor was one
of them disappointed, for the Anne, might well have dropped her anchor
to the tune of "Sweethearts and Wives," so laden was she with those
precious commodities.

"Come Captain!" called Bradford as the dory lay ready to transport the
last three to the pinnace already under sail.

"No," somewhat morosely returned Standish. "I shall only be in the way
of other men's rejoicings. There's naught for me aboard that or any
oth