“Oh, Ras, dear dear Ras! Don’t look so, don’t speak so! There are very tears in your eyes, and see, they call the tears to mine! Why truly, dear Ras, I love you, I love you dearly, as well as I love Alick or Josias,--as well as I love Betty Alden, who is the dearest friend I have, as well as”-- “Stop, stop, for pity’s sake! I thought I suffered before, but oh, Lora, you have given me my deathblow.” “Nay, what is it, what is it I have done? What a wicked wretch I am to grieve you so, but how is it, dear? Indeed I do love you, Ras, I do indeed!” “Yes, you love me as a child loves, as an angel loves, as you loved me years ago when I, already come to man’s estate, watched you growing to womanhood like a sweet flower, and vowed that you, and none but you, should be my wife; and for the sake of that vow and for love of you,--yes, an ever growing love of you, mine own sweet love,--I have never looked upon a maiden’s face save as a woman might. I have cared so little for their company that they flout me”-- “Yes, they call you the old bachelor,” interrupted Lora, half merrily and half penitently. “But I never once dreamed it was for love of me you held yourself so strange to all the others. But now I do know, Ras, it seems no more than honest that you should have what you have waited for, and if you want me for your wife, and my father and my mother make no objection, why I will please you thus far.” “You will--you will be my wife!” exclaimed Wrestling. “Oh, Lora, do you mean it? Do you really, really mean that you will be my wife?” “It seems to me, young man, that I have somewhat to say in this matter,” broke in a strident voice, and Lora looked up in dismay at her father’s face, very angry, very ominous, yet not turned upon her. At a later day Myles Standish was glad to remember that even in this extremity he never spoke one angry word, or cast one angry look to the child who was the idol of his life. “Oh--Captain Standish!” stammered Wrestling, springing to his feet. “Yes, Master Brewster, Captain Standish at your service, who ventures to suggest that you might have done better to ask his leave before urging his daughter to defy his wishes.” “Oh, father!” And Lora, rising to her slender height, stepped forward and fearlessly slid a soft little hand into the captain’s brawny half-closed fist. “Defy you, father!” murmured she, looking into his face with eyes of loving reproach, “nay, I never could do that.” “I know it, my pet, I know it; but there, make you home as soon as ever you may--mother is waiting for you--run away, child, run.” “Nay, father, but I fain would know first why you are so angry with my dear friend Ras. He says he loves me very much, and he wants me to be his wife, and I love him too, and if you please to have it so, I said I would marry him”--