“There’s Hobomok waiting to catch the bowline,” resumed Winslow pacifically. “What a good faithful creature he has proved, and how fond of you, Captain!”
“He is my friend, and I am one that looks for faithfulness in a friend,” replied the captain significantly.
“You have a right to ask for what you give. And lo you now! there’s a pretty sight!” pursued the diplomat, undisturbed. “Those little maids all in white and flower-crowned mind one of the maids of Israel coming forth to meet the captain of Judah.”
“Or ‘Benjamin our little ruler,’ more aptly,” laughed Standish, whose pride had no taint of personal vanity.
“Those two slips of May are your Lora, and Betty Alden, are they not?” pursued Winslow.
“Yes; they are fast friends, and always together. Fair lasses enow, eh, John?”
“Methinks we’ve naught to complain of, Captain,” returned Alden placidly.
“They mind one of moonlight and dawn,” said Winslow with honest admiration in his voice. “Lora does not look like a colonist’s child, Captain.”
“No. She favors her forbears. There’s an old picture at Standish Hall that might have been painted for her likeness. Mayhap some day”—
“And Betty is a real rosebud of Old England. She does not copy her comely mother, Alden, and yet is as comely.”