"Shift the child to my arm, Constance," he said, sitting beside her. "You must be weary with your long vigil over her, my patient, sweet Constance!"
"Oh, Father-daddy," cried Constance, quick tears springing to her eyes, "what does it matter if you call me that? You will always love me, my father?"
"Child, child, what aileth thee?" said Stephen Hopkins, gently. "Are you not the very core of my heart, so like your lovely young mother that you grip me at times with the pain of my joy in you and my sorrow for her. The pilgrim brethren would not approve of such expressions of love, my dear, yet I think God who gave me a father's heart and you a daughter's, and taught us our duty to Him by the figure of His own Fatherhood, cannot share that condemnation. All the world to me you shall be to the end of my life, my Constance. But I came to tell you a great piece of news. The Mayflower has shipped another passenger, mid-seas though it is."
Constance looked up questioningly.
"I have another son, Constance. The angels given charge of little children saw him safely to us through the perils of the voyage. Do you not think, as I do, that this child is like a promise to us of success in the New World?"
"Yes, Father," said Constance, softly, sweet gravity upon her face, and tears upon her lashes. "Will he be called Stephen?"
"Your stepmother wishes him named Oceanus, because of his sea-birth. Do you like the name?" asked her father.
Constance shook her head. "Not a whit," she said, "for it sounds like a heathen god, and that I do not like, though my stepmother is a stricter Puritan than are you and I. I would love another Stephen Hopkins. But if it must be Oceanus—well, I'll try to make it a smooth ocean for the little fellow, his life with us, I mean."
"Shall we go below to see him? I will carry Damaris," said Mr. Hopkins, rising, and offering Constance his hand, at the same time shifting her burden to himself.
Damaris whined and burrowed into her father's shoulder, half waking. Constance stumbled and fell laughing, to her knees, numb from long sitting with the child's weight upon them.