"Hard to face westward all the time, my friend; even Con feels the tug of old ways, and the old home, on her heartstrings," said Captain Myles.
[CHAPTER XI]
A Home Begun and a Home Undone
"Do you know aught of your brother, Constance?" asked Stephen Hopkins when he appeared in the great kitchen and common room of his home early the following morning.
"He hath been away from home all night," Dame Eliza answered for Constance, her lips pulled down grimly.
"Which I know quite well, wife," said her husband. "Constance, did Giles speak to you of whither he was going?"
Constance looked up, meeting her father's troubled eyes, her own cloudless.
"No, Father, but he must be with the other lads. Perhaps they are serving up some merry trick for the wedding. Nothing can have befallen him. Giles was the happiest lad yesterday, Father dear! I must hasten through the breakfast-getting!"
Constance fluttered away in a visible state of pleasant excitement. Her father watched her without speaking, his eyes still gloomy; he knew that Constance lacked knowledge of his reason for being anxious over Giles's absence.
"And why should you hasten the getting of breakfast, Constantia Hopkins?" demanded Dame Eliza. "It is to be no earlier than common. If you are thinking to see Priscilla Mullins made the wife of John Alden, it will not be till nine of the clock, and that is nearly three hours distant."