"Good news, Con? This seems to be a day of good things," said her father, as Constance nodded hard. "The coming of yonder Indian seems to me the happiest thing that could well have befallen us. Given the friendship of our neighbouring tribes we have little to fear from more distant ones, and the great threat to our colony's continuance is removed. Well, I will walk with you child, but not far nor long. There is scant time for dalliance in our lives, you know." They went out, Constance first running to snatch her cloak and pull its deep hood over her hair as a precaution against a cold that the warm day might betray her into, and which she had good reason to fear who had helped nurse the victims of the first months of the immigration. "The good news, Daughter?" hinted Mr. Hopkins after they had walked a short distance in silence. Constance laughed triumphantly, giving his arm a little shake. "I waited to see if you wouldn't ask!" she cried, "I knew you were just as curious, you men, as we poor women creatures--but of course in a big, manly way!" She pursed her lips and shook her head, lightly pinching her father to point her satire. "Have a care, Mistress Constantia!" her father warned her. "Curiosity is a weakness, even dangerous, but disrespect to your elders and betters, what is that?" "Great fun," retorted Constance. Her father laughed. He found his girl's playfulness, which she was recovering with the springtide and the relief from the heavy sorrow of the first weeks in Plymouth, refreshing amid the extreme seriousness of most of the people around him. "Proceed with your tidings, you saucy minx!" he said. "Very well then, Mr. Stephen Hopkins," Constance obeyed him, "what would you say if I were to tell you that there was news of your missing packet of papers?" Stephen Hopkins stopped short. "I should say thank God with all my heart, Constance, not merely because the loss was serious, but most of all because of Giles. Is it true?" he asked. "They are found!" cried Constance, jubilantly, "and it was Giles himself who faced the thief and forced him to give them up. It is a fine tale!" And she proceeded to tell it. Her father's relief, his pleasure, was evidently great, but to Constance's alarm as the story ended, his face settled into an expression of annoyance. "It is indeed good news, Constance, and I am grateful, relieved by it," he said, having heard her to the end. "But why did not Giles tell me this himself, bring me the recovered packet? Would it not be natural to wish to confer upon me, himself, the happiness he had won for me, to hasten to me with his victory, still more that it clears him of the least doubt of complicity in the loss?"