“Ah well, ah well!” said Priscilla once more, and restlessly plucked a rose or two from the tall bush beside the door, those old-fashioned, sweet white roses now almost forgotten. As she pinned them in the kerchief covering her bosom, the matron paused, and with eye and ear questioned the grassy path leading from the new-made highway to the front of their own house. Yes, a horse was heavily trotting up the path, and, going around the corner of the house, Priscilla was just in time to meet Mistress Standish, mounted upon a pillion, with John Haward in the saddle.
“And glad am I to see you, Barbara,” cried she, embracing and kissing her friend with more vivacity than most mothers of her day ventured to show. “’Tis a sight for sore eyes to look upon you. Where have you been keeping yourself?”
“Where housewives must—at home,” replied Barbara pleasantly. “John, you can lift the saddle and cool the mare’s back, but I shall not tarry over an hour, so hold you within call.”
“Nay, you’ll stay supper,” remonstrated Priscilla as the two women went into the house, and the hostess removed her guest’s riding gear. “There’s a moon, you know.”
“Ay, and there’s a goodman at home,” retorted Barbara, and then, her face suddenly losing its somewhat artificial air of cheerfulness, she looked piteously in her friend’s eyes and said with a catch in her voice,—
“’Tis about him, about Myles, that I’ve come to see you, Priscilla.”
“Why, what is the matter, dear? Is the captain ailing more than usual?”
“No, though he’s far from well, and naught angers him so quick as saying so; but that’s not the worst. ’Tis his soul that’s sick, Priscilla.”
“But how? Has the parson been at him again to join the church?”
“Nay, I’m afraid Master Partridge will never look over the things Myles said the last time he urged him so vehemently, and the captain gave way to the ache in his back, that he says is ever with him, and let out a strange oath or two about meddling parsons and I know not what. To be sure’t was in Dutch, but I think parson spelled out enough of it to anger him, and”—