d at once adopted by the Elder's wife as her especial charge.

In the next house, on a lot of land appropriated at first to John
Goodman and some others, the governor had taken up his abode with his
delicate wife, her maid Lois, Desire Minter their ward, and several
children whom she cared for. John Howland, the governor's secretary and
right-hand man, also lived here, and, like the manly man he was,
hesitated not to give help wherever it was needed.

Owing to Mrs. Carver's very delicate health, it had been arranged that
this family should share the table at Elder Brewster's, where the young
girls just mentioned were ready and glad to take charge of the household
labors, leaving their elders free for other matters.

In another house, placed in charge of Stephen Hopkins and his bustling
wife, nearly all the unmarried men were gathered, and made a hearty and
soberly jocund family. The third house, headed by Isaac Allerton and his
daughters, was the home of Bradford, Winslow, Mistress Susannah White,
with her children, Resolved and Peregrine, and her brother, Doctor
Fuller, with their little nephew, Samuel Fuller, whose father and mother
both lay on Cole's Hill.

In the Common house, under charge of Master Warren, with the Billingtons
as officials, were gathered the rest of the company except Standish, who
slept in his own house on the hill, but had his place at Elder
Brewster's table when he chose to take it.

Hither he now came, silent and grave as was his wont since Rose died,
but ever ready to give his aid and sympathy, whether in handicraft or
counsel, to the governor, the elder, or the women struggling with
unwonted labors. Of lamentation there was none, and since the day the
soldier stood beside that open grave and watched the mould piled upon
the coffin his own hands had fashioned no man, not even the elder, had
heard his wife's name, or any allusion to his loss, pass his lips; yet
those who knew him best marked well the line that had deepened between
his brows, the still endurance of his eyes, and the sadness underlying
every intonation of his voice; and those who knew him not, and had in
their shallower natures no chord to vibrate in sympathy with this grand
patience, comprehended it not, and seeing him thus ready and helpful,
not evading such pleasant talk as lightened the toil of his comrades,
not preoccupied or gloomy, these thought the light wound was already
healed, and more than one beside Desire Minter