CHAPTER XXX.
PEEPING TOM AND HIS BROTHER.
Dame Alice Bradford sat alone in her fair bedroom, its latticed windows swinging wide to admit the flower-laden breeze that, young and fresh as when we saw it peeping in at the council of the fathers and the stitching of the little maids, peeped now at the still figure of the matron, sitting for once quite idle, her hands folded listlessly upon her lap. She was thinking, as it chanced, of that very morning, long ago, when the green footstool cover was finished, and her little Mercy and Desire Howland had admired it so much, and each begun one like it; and now Mercy, her one daughter, her little ewe lamb as she called her in thought, was Mistress Vermayes, with a home in Boston and a grand future before her, and Desire Howland was married to John Gorham; and although her two boys William and Joseph were as good sons as a mother need ask, they were sons, and not daughters, nor was Dame Alice in haste to see them bring daughters home to her.
A few slow, meek tears gathered in her eyes and overflowed just as the door opened and the governor came in with a letter in his hand. A glance at his wife showed him her case, and he said tenderly,—
“Is it the empty nest, sweetheart, that grieves you?”
“Nay, Will, how can I be lonesome while you are left to me?”
“Well and bravely said, my wife, and yet I blame thee not, I blame thee not. I miss the dear maid myself oftener than I would like to say. But you know how oft we’ve spoke of your sister Mary Carpenter in her lonely estate since her mother died”—
“And my mother as well as hers,” suggested Alice with a little sob.
“Why surely, dear heart, and I know well that you grieve for her; but now I’ve written to Mary, bidding her come and make her home with us, and offering to pay the charges of her voyage, since she is left in such straitened case, and here’s the letter all ready to send by Kenelm Winslow, who is summoned by his brother to England to receive some instructions. Kenelm will go to Bristol and see Mary, but I have bidden her not to wait for his escort back, but to come so soon as she can light of safe company, since you need her here.”