Such is the sorry tale of the Indian squaw and the English parson, a tale the more despicable because, though she had been reared in English ways, baptized in the English faith, had been the friend of English men and women, and married three English husbands; yet when fifty years old she returned at vicious suggestion with promptitude and fierceness to violent savage ways, to incite a massacre of her friends. And that suggestion came not from her barbarian kin, but from an English gentleman—a Christian priest. CHAPTER IV A VAIN PURITAN GRANDMOTHER _“Things farre-fetched and deare-bought are good for Ladies.”_ —“Arte of English Poesie,” G. PUTTENHAM, 1589. _“I honour a Woman that can honour herself with her Attire. A good Text deserves a Fair Margent.”_ —“The Simple Cobbler of Agawam,” J. WARD, 1713. CHAPTER IV A VAIN PURITAN GRANDMOTHER T here was a certain family prominent in affairs in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with members resident in England, New England, and the Barbadoes. They were gentlefolk—and gentle folk; they were of birth and breeding; and they were kindly, tender, affectionate to one another. They were given to much letter-writing, and better still to much letter-keeping. Knowing the quality of their letters, I cannot wonder at either habit; for the prevalence of the letter-keeping was due, I am sure, to the perfection of the writing. Their letters were ever lively in diction, direct and lucid in description, and widely varied in interest; therefore they were well worthy of preservation, simply for the owner’s re-reading. They have proved so for all who have brushed the dust from the packages and deciphered the faded words. Moreover, these letters are among the few family letters of our two centuries which convey, either to the original reader or to his successor of to-day, anything that could, by most generous construction or fullest imagination, be deemed equivalent to what we now term News. Of course their epistles contained many moral reflections and ample religious allusions and aspirations; and they even transcribed to each other, in full, long Biblical quotations with as much exactness and length as if each deemed his correspondent a benighted heathen, with no Bible to consult, instead of being an equally pious kinsman with a Bible in every room of his house.