“Oh, it is you, Mistress Gillian, is it? I should think Tabitha would have remembered you.” “I have not been in Plymouth more than once or twice since the dear Elder’s funeral,” said Gillian sorrowfully. “The dear Elder, yes,” replied Dame Alice. “He’s been mourned but once among us, for the first mourning hath not ceased, nor will it soon with those who knew and loved him.” “Yet none loved him like me, for he was the best friend, the only friend I had in all the world!” And in a burst of emotion honest enough, and yet more uncontrolled than the emotions of most persons of that place and time, Gillian sobbed and cried, and hid her face upon the cushion of the great chair beside which she had sunk, until the dame, laying a hand upon the round shoulder whence the cape had slipped, said kindly yet reprovingly,-- “Nay, Gillian, ’tis not meet to give way to even the worthiest grief in such fashion as this. Dry up your eyes now, while I go to fetch you some orange-flower water, and when you have drunk it we will speak of other matters.” “Nay, dear lady, I want no orange-flower water, nor to keep you longer than need be, but I have come to you a beggar, and would fain make my petition ere my courage fails.” “A petition, maiden? Well, now, what is it? Something that I can grant, I hope, for I love to pleasure young maids for my dear daughter’s sake.” “Ah, sweet Dame Alice, if I might come and be a daughter to you! There’s my petition all in one word,--that I may come and live with you. Am I overbold?” “To live with me, Gillian? Why, how do you mean, child?” “Let me come and be in the place of a daughter and yet not claim a daughter’s love or rights, unless, indeed, I serve you so well that you cannot but love me a little, and so comfort your own heart. I have no home, and I know no one with whom I am so fain to live as with you, dear dame.” “But your aunt, Lucretia Brewster”-- “They are going to Connecticut as soon as may be, and my aunt says she needs me not, if I can find another home, and Love Brewster and his wife treat me ill, and since the dear, dear old Elder died I have no one left to say one kind or careful word to me; and oh, dame, I do wish, and more than once or twice, that I lay beside my mother”-- “Poor child, poor orphan child!” murmured Alice Bradford, laying a hand upon the girl’s silken tresses as the head rested against her knee in all the abandonment of grief. “Yes, you shall come and stay with us for a while, at least, if the governor consent, as I am sure he will, and if your kinsfolk make no objection. Love and Sarah are here to-day, are they not?”