And as Priscilla bustled into the room and hastily put on her outdoor gear she noticed neither how grave her husband looked, nor how little progress Betty had made with the dishes.
A little later, as John Alden brought his wife home from the lecture, he said,—
“William Wright was telling me that he saw Prissie Carpenter and our Betty with Sir Christopher Gardiner by the brook picking posies this afternoon.”
“Why ’twas you that bade me send Betty out with him!” exclaimed Priscilla, forestalling the objection in her husband’s voice.
“I know it, and I’d better have left the matter to you, wife. It was ill thought on, and we’ll not have our little maid called in question if the man is plotting an escape”—
“Talking with Pris Carpenter, was he?” interrupted Priscilla sharply.
“Yes”—
“Then it wasn’t escape he was talking of, but his own captivity to her charms. She knew him in England, John; she told me so, and showed me a token he gave her. Mayhap he’s come to marry her!”
“And the woman Mary Grove, what make you of that, wife?”
“Oh, a body must have charity, and many a mare’s nest is naught but a tangle in the hedge. We’ll see.”