"I am ill skilled at logic, Myles. I cannot set out my feelings in class and order, as our chirurgeon doth his herbs and flowers." "Well, Barbara, I'm grieved that thou lookest upon me so coldly, but I draw not back from my petition. I'd liefer have thy calm tenderness than another's hot love, for I can trust thee as I trust mine own honor, and I know full well that thou 'lt ever be better than thy word. So take me, Barbara, for thy husband, and fulfill the dear mother's last desire, and give me the hope of teaching thee in the days to come to love me even as I love thee." But for all answer Barbara only turned and laid her hands in his, and slowly raised the wonder of her eyes until they looked straight into his; and the man whose front had never quailed in face of death or danger grew pallid beneath his bronze, and trembled like a leaf in the wind. "What!--Barbara!--Dost really love me, maid? Nay, cheat me not--speak! Dost love me, sweetheart, already?" But Barbara said never a word, nor did Myles ever know more of the secret of her life than in that one supreme moment he read in her steadfast eyes. CHAPTER XXXIX. A MILITARY WEDDING. "And thou 'rt not amazed, Elsie, that our captain and his kinswoman will wed?" asked Governor Bradford of his wife in the privacy of the family bedroom. "No more than at the sun's rising in the East," replied Alice with a demure little smile. "Hm! Master Galileo saith the sun riseth not at all, and though the power of Rome caused him to gainsay it, he did tell me privily in Amsterdam that it was sooth, and the sun bided forever in the one place while this round world turned over daily." "I ever thought the good man was a little crazed," replied Mistress Bradford serenely. "Like Paul, much learning had made him mad." "Nay wife, 't was Festus charged Paul with madness, because the apostle knew more than himself. Haply 't is so with Master Galileo." "It may be, William. These be not matters for women to meddle withal," replied Alice meekly. "But anent our captain's wooing of his cousin, Elsie? How is 't thou 'rt not amazed like the rest of us?" "Because I saw long since that Barbara would never wed another than her cousin, and thou knowest, Will, how like draws to like, even across the waste of ocean." "Ay dame, I know it well and sweetly, and never shall I forget to give thanks to Him whose wisdom reacheth from end to end, sweetly ordering all things. But how chanced Mistress Barbara to confess her fondness to thee, sweetheart?" "Nay now! Though men do be our masters in most things, how dull they still show themselves in others. As if a maid, or for that matter a widow, would ever 'confess her fondness' for any man till he had wooed her so to do, and but coyly then, if she be wise." "Too coyly for him to credit her with overmuch tenderness," suggested the bridegroom.