Soft is the breath of a maiden's yes; Not the light gossamer stirs with less; But never a cable that holds so fast, Through all the battles of wave and blast, And never an echo of speech or song That lives in the babbling air so long! There were tones in the voice that whispered then You may hear to-day in a hundred men. O lady and lover, how faint and far Your images hover, and here we are, Solid and stirring in flesh and bone, Edward's and Dorothy's--all their own-- A goodly record for time to show Of a syllable spoken so long ago! Shall I bless you, Dorothy, or forgive, For the tender whisper that bade me live? It shall be a blessing, my little maid, I will heal the stab of the Redcoat's blade, And freshen the gold of the tarnished frame, And gild with a rhyme your household name, So you shall smile on us, brave and bright, As first you greeted the morning's light, And live untroubled by woes and fears, Through a second youth of a hundred years. This Dorothy Quincy, it is interesting to note, was the aunt of a second Dorothy Quincy, who married Governor Hancock. The Wendells were of Dutch descent. Evert Jansen Wendell, who came from East Friesland in 1645, was the original settler in Albany. From the church records, we find that he was the _Regerendo Dijaken_ in 1656, and upon one of the windows of the old Dutch church in Albany, the arms of the Wendells--a ship riding at two anchors--were represented in stained glass. Very little is known of these early ancestors, but the name is still an influential one among the old Knickerbocker families. Early in the eighteenth century, Abraham and Jacob Wendell left their Albany home and came to Boston. It is said that Jacob (the great-grandfather of Oliver Wendell Holmes) fell in love with his future wife, the daughter of Doctor James Oliver, when she was only nine years of age. Seeing her at play, he was so impressed by her beauty and grace that, like the Jacob of old, he willingly waited the flight of years. Twelve children blessed this happy union, and the youngest daughter married William Phillips, the first mayor of Boston, and the father of Wendell Phillips. Fair cousin, Wendell P., says Doctor Holmes in his Phi Beta Kappa poem of 1881: Our ancestors were dwellers beside the Zuyder Zee; Both Grotius and Erasmus were countrymen of we, And Vondel was our namesake, though he spelt it with a v.