By Jane G. Austin STANDISH OF STANDISH. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25. BETTY ALDEN. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25. A NAMELESS NOBLEMAN. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25; paper, 50 cents. DR. LE BARON AND HIS DAUGHTERS. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25. THE DESMOND HUNDRED. A Novel. 16mo, $1.00; paper, 50 cents. NANTUCKET SCRAPS. Being the Experiences of an Off-Islander In Season and Out of Season. 16mo, $1.50. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY, BOSTON AND NEW YORK. BETTY ALDEN THE FIRST-BORN DAUGHTER OF THE PILGRIMS BY JANE G. AUSTIN AUTHOR OF “STANDISH OF STANDISH,” “A NAMELESS NOBLEMAN,” “DR. LE BARON AND HIS DAUGHTERS,” “THE DESMOND HUNDRED,” “NANTUCKET SCRAPS,” ETC. [Illustration: Logo] BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1891 Copyright, 1891, BY JANE G. AUSTIN _All rights reserved._ _The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._ Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. TO MY DEAR COUSINS MARSTON AND MARY WATSON AND THEIR HILLSIDE WHERE BETTY ALDEN HAS BEEN SO PLEASANTLY CRADLED DURING THE PAST YEAR This Story of her Life and Times IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED PLYMOUTH _Michaelmas, 1891_ PREFACE. Everybody has sympathized with Mr. Dick who could not keep King Charles’s head out of his memorial, and I hope everybody will sympathize with me who have been unable to keep Betty Alden in this her memorial so constantly as I wished and she deserved. But as the whole includes the less, her story will be found threaded through that of her people and her times in that modest subordination to which the lives of her sex were trained in that day. He who would read for himself the story of this noble woman, the first-born daughter of the Pilgrims, must seek it through ancient volumes and mouldering records, until at Little Compton in Rhode Island he finds upon her gravestone the last affectionate and honorable mention of Elizabeth, daughter of John and Priscilla Alden, and wife of William Pabodie. Or in lighter mood, he may consider the rugged rhyme tradition places in her mouth upon the occasion of the birth of her great great grandchild:-- “Rise daughter! To thy daughter run! Thy daughter’s daughter hath a son.” One word upon a subject which has of late been a good deal discussed, but by no means settled, and that is, the burial place of Myles Standish. In the absence of all proof in any such matter, tradition becomes important, and so far as I have been able to determine, the tradition that some of the earliest settlers were buried in the vicinity of a temporary meeting-house upon Harden Hill in Duxbury is more reliable than the tradition that Standish was laid in an old burying ground at Hall’s Corner which probably was not set aside as a burial place in 1656, the date of his death.