“Oh, John, how you tease!” cried Hope, pouting, yet clinging to the arm of her stalwart brother, a fine young fellow, who at a later date calmly incurred judicial censure and a heavy fine for the sake of warning some Quakers, in whose belief he had no share, that they were about to be arrested and imprisoned. And from that day to our own the stout Howland blood has held its own, foremost in that Army of Occupation which the departing Pilgrims left to hold the land their prowess had won. But while this little scene was enacted around the hopper, William Pabodie, who, bringing his father’s corn to mill late in the afternoon, had accepted an invitation to spend the evening and join the merrymaking, wandered out of the house, and standing beside the pool, idly broke the branch of lilac that some one had given him into little bits and cast them upon the waters. “Nay, don’t spoil the pretty posy so,” cooed a dulcet voice at his elbow. “If you don’t want it, give it to me.” “And welcome, Mistress Gillian,” replied the young man coldly, as he held out the flowering branch. “Oh, but ’tis all torn and ragged,” remonstrated the girl, touching it, then drawing back as if it wounded her. “Trim it for me with your knife, good Master William. Nay, then, I’ll not borrow your unfriendly tone. A scant two months agone ’twas Jill and Willy”-- “I ever hated the name of Willy since I was a baby!” exclaimed the young man petulantly, yet taking the branch and trimming it as he was bid, while Gillian, pressing close to his side, watched the operation as if it were some rare and fascinating sight. “But why are you so changed to me?” murmured she, scorning the side issue, and like a true woman keeping to the point of personal interest. “Changed? Am I changed?” asked the man helplessly. “Oh, Will! Think of the night you took me in your sledge to ride across the snow.” “’Twas a great while ago,” muttered Pabodie awkwardly. “Ah, yes, a great while ago; and all that is fair and sweet and worthy to be had in remembrance of all my life is a great while ago,” said the girl bitterly, and as she raised her great dark eyes to the moon, whose light mingled with that of dying day, Pabodie could not but see that they were full of tears, and that the ripe mouth quivered piteously. What man ever yet saw such a sight unmoved, especially when the face was so wondrous fair, the June air so full of fragrance, the moon so softly bright. “Nay, Gillian, I never meant to be unkind to you!” murmured William Pabodie, half unconsciously taking the hand whose finger-tips grazed his palm, and at the least invitation nestled so confidingly into it. “Gillian,” said a clear, cool voice just beside the pair. “I am sent to call you both to a game,--a game for all of us to play together.”