“Oh, he will have mentioned it to Barbara, and she to Priscilla Alden, before this!” exclaimed Alice. “They are like one household, the Standishes and Aldens, and Priscilla loves to talk.”
“But Barbara is very prudent, and if she has heard so ill a story will think twice before she spreads it. I never knew a woman less given to gossip, except mine own wife. I’ll tell thee, Alice, I’ll ask Myles if he has told the tale; and if he has, I’ll ask him to speak to Barbara and find how far it has gone.”
“But do not tell even the captain of our poor maid’s folly,” interposed Alice.
“Nay, child, I’m as jealous for Prissie’s good name as if she were mine own sister. Come, you are shivering, and the night dews begin to fall. Let us go home.”
CHAPTER XIII.
ONE! TWO! THREE! FIRE!
Alice Bradford’s instinct had correctly foreseen that Myles would narrate his adventures to his wife just as Bradford had to his; but the governor’s reason was also correct in arguing that Barbara would be likely to keep such a story to herself, and the rather that Pris Carpenter had once spoken the name of Sir Christopher Gardiner in her presence with so much of maidenly flutter that Barbara felt there was a story underneath.
So when Bradford took occasion, over a pipe in the captain’s den, to suggest that it was as well for the present to keep the story of the knight of the Golden Melice from the public, Myles replied with a laugh,—