“Likely. But ’tis their affair and not ours,” replied Barbara quietly. “Now let us see. Would you set open the case holding the twelve ivory-handled knives?”
“Yes, they’re a rarity, and some of the folk may not have seen them. Alice says that in London they put a knife to every man’s trencher now, and nobody uses his own sheath-knife as has been the wont.”
“You tell me so! Well, one knife’s enough for Myles and me, yes, and the boys to boot. But then I cut the meat in morsels, and spread the bread with butter, or ever it goes on the table.”
“Of course; so we all do, I suppose. Well there, all is ready now, and here come the folk; there’s Patty Brewster, or Patience Prence as she must now be called, and along with her Fear Allerton and Remember and Mary,—her daughters indeed! Marry come up! I might have had Isaac Allerton for myself, but”—
“And there is Constance Hopkins, and Nicholas Snow,” interrupted Barbara, who was a deadly foe to gossip, “and John and Elizabeth Howland; then there’s Stephen Dean with Betsey Ring, and Edward Bangs and Lyddy Hicks, and Mary Warren and Robert Bartlett, three pair of sweethearts together, and here they all are at the door.”
But as the more lively Priscilla ran to open it, the governor’s hearty voice was heard without, crying,—
“Welcome! Welcome, friends! I was called out for a moment, but have come home just in the nick of time and brought the captain with me.”
“Now I do hope Myles has put on his ruff, and his other doublet that I laid out,” murmured Barbara in Priscilla’s ear. “When the governor and he get together, the world’s well lost for both of them.”
“Nay, he’s all right, and a right proper man, as he always was,” returned Priscilla, with a quick glance at the square figure and commanding head of the Captain of Plymouth, as he entered the room and smiled in courtly fashion at Dame Bradford’s greeting.
“And here’s your John, a head and shoulders above all the rest,” added Barbara good-naturedly, as Alden, the Saxon giant, strode into the room and looked fondly across it at his wife.