The company was large, for in the good Old Colony fashion it included both married and single persons, and would, if possible, have made no distinctions of age or position, but this catholicity had in the growth of the colony become impossible, and Mistress Bradford’s invitations were, with much searching of spirit and desire to avoid offense, confined principally to young persons, married and unmarried, likely to become associates of her sister Priscilla, a fair-haired, sweet-lipped, and daintily colored lass, reproducing Dame Alice’s own early charms. “The Brewster girls must come, although I cannot yet be reconciled to Fear’s having married Isaac Allerton, and calling herself mother to Bart, and Mary and Remember--great grown girls!” exclaimed the hostess in consultation with her husband, and he pleasantly replied,-- “Oh, well, dame, we must not hope to guide all the world by our own wisdom; and certes, if Fear’s marriage is a little incongruous, her sister Patience is well and fitly mated with Thomas Prence. It does one good to see such a comely and contented pair of wedded sweethearts.” “True enough, Will, and your thought is a rebuke to mine.” “Nay, wife, ’tis you that teach me to be charitable.” And the two, come together to reap in the glorious St. Martin’s summer of their days the harvest sown amid the chill tears of spring, looked in each other’s eyes with a smile of deep content. The woman was the first to set self aside, and cried,-- “Come, come, Sir Governor! To business! Mistress Allerton, and her _daughters_, Mary and Remember, Bartholomew, and the Prences, Constance Hopkins with Nicholas Snow, whom she will marry, the Aldens, the captain and his wife”-- “He is hardly to be ranked with the young folk, is he?” “No, dear, no more than Master Allerton, or, for that matter, the governor and his old wife; but there, there, no more waste of time, sir! Who else is to come, and who to be left at home?” “Nay, wife, I’m out of my depth already and will e’en get back to firm land, which means I leave all to your discretion. Call Barbara and Priscilla Alden to council, and let me know in time to put on my new green doublet and hose, for I suppose I am to don them.” “Indeed you are, and your ruffles and your silk stockings that I brought over. I will not let you live altogether in hodden gray, since even the Elder goes soberly fine on holidays.” “Well, well, I leave it all to you, and must betake myself to the woods. Good-by for a little.” “Good-by, dear.” And as the governor with an axe on his shoulder strode away down Market Street and across the brook to Watson’s Hill, Dame Alice, a kerchief over her head, once more ran up the hill to Priscilla Alden’s.