I always thought that a fine line, though it isn't quoted as often as it might be; 'the cornerstone of a nation,'" repeated Mr. Stacy. "Well, Priscilla and I always have a pretty little quarrel over this particular doorstep. You know she is very proud of her descent from Priscilla and John Alden." "So am I," piped up little George. "Of course, my boy, just as I am of descending from Mary Chilton. Well, traditions are somewhat confused as to who stepped first on Plymouth Rock--providing anyone of the Mayflower people really stepped on it at all. The honors are divided apparently between Mary Chilton and John Alden. I'd like to give them to a lady--Priscilla, for example, but in that case I should have to slight another lady, my ancestress, Mary Chilton; so there you have the two horns of a dilemma." "Oh, I know better than that," cried George; "Mary Chilton wasn't in it, of course she wasn't." "In what, my child? or are you merely indulging in slang?" "Oh, you know, Mr. Stacy, she wasn't in that first shallop that went ashore from Clark's Island. Of course a woman wouldn't come out in a little boat, when they were trying to find a landing-place. No, of course it was John Alden." "Your reasoning is pretty reasonable--for a little boy," said Mr. Stacy. "But, my dear Miss Chicago," he continued, "if you are on a sight-seeing walk, let me go with you. I need not say to an up-to-date young lady that none of the houses of the original Pilgrims are here, though as we walk along we shall pass near the sites of many of them. The old Plymouth was chiefly down here near the water, not so very far from the rock. This is the first street, close to the brook that ran down from Billington Sea." "It must be very pleasant in summer," and Martine glanced down the long tree-lined street. The trees were budding, but the leaves were not yet out. "It is a calm, shady street," rejoined Mr. Stacy; "sometimes we wish the electric cars were not so near, but the curse has been partly taken off by the names they bear. Probably you have noticed 'Priscilla,' 'Pilgrim,' 'Samoset,' and the other historical names. Perhaps it is just as well there are none of the old houses left. The descendants of forefathers might have been ashamed of them, of the houses--I mean. Perhaps you remember Holmes' lines on the subject. The Autocrat had the faculty of hitting the nail on the head and in speaking of the Pilgrim, he says:-- "'His home was a freezing cabin Too bare for a freezing rat, Its roof was thatched with ragged grass, And bald enough for that. The hole that served for casement Was glazed with a ragged hat.' But this description applies only to the very first houses. Those that were built for the next twenty or thirty years were plain enough, but comfortable. Plymouth never had many of the elaborate Colonial houses that are shown in some of the New England towns."