“Oh, I know well enough what _she_ is,” murmured Betty; the young man paused, but would not, could not speak the thoughts that arose in his mind. Perhaps Betty was, after all, not ill pleased, for let men say what they will of the jealousies of women, there is among them an _esprit de corps_ that rises indignantly in every true woman’s breast when she hears her own sex or any member of it scorned by man. So an abrupt silence fell between the two,--an eloquent silence, for as his hands firmly grasped hers, and the strong throbbing of his pulses vibrated along her nerves, there was no need of words, until after a few wonderful moments, moments that life could never repeat, the young man drew his true love close, close to his heart, and their lips met in a betrothal kiss. CHAPTER XXXII. ROBED IN WHITE SAMITE. There was company at the captain’s house, the same dear friends whom we have seen with him on so many joyous occasions, the Aldens, the Howlands, the Brewsters, the Pabodies and Hatherleys, and Cudworths; and from Plymouth, the governor and his wife, the Hopkinses, and other of the captain’s friends and associates of the old time now so long gone by, and yet so powerful in the ties then formed. Parson Rayner was there, too, and Ralph Partridge, but it was as friends and neighbors that they came, and the only official word the minister of Duxbury uttered was when he wrung the captain’s hand and said, “‘Be strong and of a good courage,’ my friend,” and Standish, lifting sombre eyes to the speaker’s face, answered him never a word. And in the midst lay Lora, very pale and still, with the golden lashes folded close upon the cheek hardly whiter now than it had always been, and the faint rose tint lingering in the lips just touched with that mysterious smile that seems the trace of a joy so divine, so all powerful, that it bursts even the icy fetters of death, and insists upon revealing itself, if ever so dimly, for the assurance of those who must see before they can believe. The pale golden hair that was the mother’s pride and boast was released from all bands, and lay a shining and rippling mantle at either side of the slender figure which at her father’s desire was clothed in the robe of white samite he had brought her from over seas, saying in his pride that thus the mistress of his ancestral home should be clothed. And now! Alas, poor father! it clothed her for her nuptials indeed, but she must cross a darker sea than the Atlantic to enter into her kingdom. The delicate hands lay folded upon the breast, and beneath them some snowdrops that Betty Pabodie had nurtured, watering them with her tears and foreseeing this day, of which indeed Lora had calmly and cheerfully spoken more than once.