"Verily!"
"Ay, verily; but what is thy bidding, Priscilla? for I have an errand on hand."
"And what weighty matter claims thee for its guardian?"
"Nay, 't is no such weighty matter, nor is it a secret. The governor will have me warn the men to gather in the Common house to-morrow to complete the affairs twice broken off by the visit of our red-skinned neighbors."
"And mark my words, John, they'll come again to-morrow so sure as you try to hold council. 'T is a fate, and you'll not escape it."
"Pooh, child! Dost believe in signs and fates?"
"My forbears did. Haply thou hadst none, and so escaped the corruption of such folly."
"Nay now, Priscilla, each one of us has just as many grandsires as another all the way back to Adam, only some of us have had more important matter in hand than to reckon up their names, and 't will never spoil a night's rest for me that I know not if my great-grandam was Cicely or Phyllis. But tell me, mistress, what my pen can do for thee?"
"Thy pen! Then 't is not thy heart or thy hand that is at my service?" and Priscilla raised a pair of such melting and velvety brown eyes to the somewhat offended face of the young giant that he at once tumbled into the depths of abject submission, and trying to seize her hand exclaimed,—
"Oh sweetheart, thou knowest only too well that hand and heart and all I have are thine if thou wilt but take them."