ce of her husband
presented itself in the morning, "where hast thou been all the night?
You look mightily cast down, and--O Lord! Heaven forgive me!--you have
a wound on the side of your head. Husband, what is the matter?"

"Why, dame," answered the Assistant, "is it a new thing for me to be
absent one night? Bethink thee how often my occasions call me to the
plantation?"

"Out upon the weariful plantation! O, sweetheart!" said the jealous
but fond wife, "I like not these absences. But, how got you this
hurt?" she inquired, parting his hair on the temple, and exposing the
dried blood.

"It is only a scratch I received in the forest, and hardly worthy thy
notice, dame. But where is Mistress Eveline? and I see not Prudence?"

"The young lady is still in her chamber, and, as for the waiting maid,
I heard her but five minutes since singing away as if there were no
music in the world but her own. Truly, it sounded more like a snatch
from some profane ballad than a godly hymn. I will tutor her about
this levity. Now do not be angry, dear life," added the dame, whose
heart was made more tender, and her tongue more communicative, by the
anxieties she had suffered during the night, on her husband's account;
"but I have fancied that you looked at the girl oftener, sometimes,
than was becoming in a man who had a wedded wife who never said him
nay."

"Fie, Dame," said the Assistant, laughing, and pinching, and kissing
her still tempting cheek; "what crazy fancies be these? Consider my
years, and profession, and dignity, and, most of all, my love for
thee. Why, this is very midsummer madness."

"I suppose I am foolish," replied the dame, wiping a tear away, "but I
feared, lest the girl might derive some encouragement from it, though
otherwise, Prudence is a good lass, and obedient, and I have no other
fault to find with her; but I recollect now, when I was a girl, how I
did feel when you came near me, and I have not got over all these
feelings yet, nor do I choose that Prudence should have them. So, dear
husband, it were safer for the girl that you should look oftener at
me, and less at her."

"My good, and faithful, and loving wife!" exclaimed the Assistant,
enclosing her in his arms, and feeling something like compunction at
the moment, "you deserve a better mate. But trouble not thyself with
such misgivings. Do not this wrong, sweet, to thine own charms, and to
my profession and station, as one of the congregation and a