Lifting mine up to a higher, a more ethereal level. Therefore I value your friendship, and feel it perhaps the more keenly

If you say aught that implies I am only as one among many,

If

you make use of those common and complimen

tary phrases

Most men think so fine, in dealing and speaking with women,

But which women reject as insipid, if not as insulting."

Mute and amazed was Alden; and listened and looked at Priscilla,

Thinking he never had seen her more fair, more divine in her beauty.

He who but yesterday pleaded so glibly the cause of another,

Stood there embarrassed and silent, and seeking in vain for an answer.

So the maiden went on, and little divined or im

agined

What was at work in his heart, that made him so awkward and speechless.

"Let us, then, be what we are, and speak what we think, and in all things

Keep ourselves loyal to truth, and the sacred professions of friendship.

It is no secret I tell you, nor am I ashamed to declare it :

I have liked to be with you, to see you, to speak with you always.

So I was hurt at your words, and a little affronted

Urge me to marry your friend, though he were the Captain Miles Standish.

For I must tell the truth: much more to me is

you

your friendship

Than all the love he could give, were he twice the hero you think him."

Then she extended her hand, and Alden, who eagerly grasped it,

Felt all the wounds in his heart, that were aching and bleeding so sorely,

Healed by the touch of that hand, and he said, with a voice full of feeling:

"Yes, we must ever be friends; and of all who offer you friendship

Let me be ever the first, the truest, the nearest and dearest!"

Casting a farewell look at the glimmering sail of the Mayflower,

Distant, but still in sight, and sinking below the horizon,

Homeward together they walked, with a strange, indefinite feeling,

That all the rest had departed and left them alone in the desert.

But, as they went through the fields in the blessing and smile of the sunshine,

Lighter grew their hearts, and Priscilla said very archly:

"Now that our terrible Captain has gone in pursuit of the Indians,

Where he is happier far than he would be commanding a household,

You may speak boldly, and tell me of all that happened between you,

When you returned last night, and said how ungrateful you found me."

Thereupon answered John Alden, and told her the whole of the story,

Told her his own despair, and the direful wrath of Miles Standish.

Whereat the maiden smiled, and said between laughing and earnest,

"He is a little chimney, and heated hot in a moment!"

But as he gently rebuked her, and told her how he had suffered,

How he had even determined to sail that day in the Mayflower,

And had remained for her sake, on hearing the dangers that threatened,

All her manner was changed, and she said with a faltering accent,

"Truly I thank you for this: how good you have been to me always!"

Thus, as a pilgrim devout, who toward Jerusalem journeys,

Taking three steps in advance, and one reluctantly backward,

Urged by importunate zeal, and withheld by pangs of contrition;

Slowly but steadily onward, receding yet ever advancing,

Line 7. But as he gently rebuked her, and told her how much he had

suffered,

Journeyed this Puritan youth to the Holy Land of his longings,

Urged by the fervor of love, and withheld by remorseful misgivings.

VII.

THE MARCH OF MILES STANDISH.

Meanwhile the stalwart Miles Standish was marching steadily northward,

Winding through forest and swamp, and along the trend of the sea-shore,

All day long, with hardly a halt, the fire of his

anger

Burning and crackling within, and the sulphurous odor of powder

Seeming more sweet to his nostrils than all the scents of the forest.

Silent and moody he went, and much he revolved his discomfort;

He who was used to success, and to easy victories

always,

Thus to be flouted, rejected, and laughed to scorn by a maiden,

Thus to be mocked and betrayed by the friend whom most he had trusted!

Ah! 't was too much to be borne, and he fretted and chafed in his armor!

"I alone am to blame," he muttered, "for mine was the folly.

What has a rough old soldier, grown grim and gray in the harness,

Used to the camp and its ways, to do with the

wooing of maidens ?

'T was but a dream, - let it like so many others!

What I thought was a flower, is only a weed, and is worthless ;

Out of my heart will I pluck it, and throw it away, and henceforward

Be but a fighter of battles, a lover and wooer of dangers!

Thus he revolved in his mind his sorry defeat and discomfort,

While he was marching by day or lying at night in the forest,

Looking up at the trees, and the constellations beyond them.

After a three days' march he came to an Indian

encampment

Pitched on the edge of a meadow, between the sea and the forest;

Women at work by the tents, and warriors, horrid with war-paint,

Seated about a fire, and smoking and talking to

gether;

Who, when they saw from afar the sudden approach of the white men,

Saw the flash of the sun on breastplate and sabre and musket,

Straightway leaped to their feet, and two, from among them advancing,

Came to parley with Standish, and offer him furs as a present;