A little later, as John Alden brought his wife home from the lecture, he said,-- “William Wright was telling me that he saw Prissie Carpenter and our Betty with Sir Christopher Gardiner by the brook picking posies this afternoon.” “Why ’twas you that bade me send Betty out with him!” exclaimed Priscilla, forestalling the objection in her husband’s voice. “I know it, and I’d better have left the matter to you, wife. It was ill thought on, and we’ll not have our little maid called in question if the man is plotting an escape”-- “Talking with Pris Carpenter, was he?” interrupted Priscilla sharply. “Yes”-- “Then it wasn’t escape he was talking of, but his own captivity to her charms. She knew him in England, John; she told me so, and showed me a token he gave her. Mayhap he’s come to marry her!” “And the woman Mary Grove, what make you of that, wife?” “Oh, a body must have charity, and many a mare’s nest is naught but a tangle in the hedge. We’ll see.” “Ay, but we’ll not have our Betty mixed in with any such matter, Priscilla, and I pray thee keep her away from this man while he is in our house. Do not send her to the fore-room again; one of the boys can carry in the sarver, or I will do’t myself, but Betty is not to go in thither again.” “As thou sayest, John,” replied Priscilla with a meekness reserved for the rare occasions when her husband chose to assert his authority; so thus it came about that not again during the week he remained at Plymouth did Sir Christopher Gardiner find speech with the child, who never to her dying day revealed the secret she had promised to keep, and never quite comforted herself for the duplicity into which she had been led. CHAPTER XVIII. THE LITTLE BOOK. An uneasy and difficult week passed over Plymouth, its shadow resting especially upon John Alden’s house, when one fine sunshining morning Jo, the second boy, rushed into the house, with the news,-- “Mother, there’s a big boat down from the Bay, and a captain in it, bigger than our captain, and the governor’s son, and a mort more of men come to get the man in our fore-room.” “And where’s thy father, Jo?” “Oh, he’s down there at the waterside, and all the other men, talking with the Bay folk, and I ran off to tell you, mother.” “That’s my brave boy! He doesn’t forget mother, does he?” And Priscilla turned to look fondly at her second-born, a fine, manly little fellow, with a marvelous likeness to his uncle Joseph Molines, victim of the first winter’s pestilence, the brother whom Priscilla had so fondly loved, so deeply mourned.