which whenever she caught sight of it set her off
again. At last, however, she wiped her eyes and penitently cried,--

"I did not think myself so rude, Myles. Pr'ythee forgive me, cousin.
Nay, look not so ungently upon me! Here's my hand on 't I am sorry."

But the captain took not the offered hand nor unbent his angry brow.
Rising from the bench he paced up and down for a moment, then stopping
in front of Barbara calmly said,--

"Nay, I'm not angry. At first I was astonied that a gentlewoman could so
forget herself; but I do remember that Thomas Standish, your father,
married beneath his station, and so imported a strain into the blood of
his noble house that will crop out now and again in his children. I
should not therefore too much admire at such derelictions from courtesy
and gentlehood as I but now have seen."

As he slowly spoke his bitter words the lingering gleams of laughter and
the softening lines of penitence faded from Barbara's face. Rising to
her height, nearly equal with that of her cousin, she gazed full into
his angry eyes with the blue splendor of her own all ablaze with
indignation and contempt.

"You dare to make light of my mother, do you, Captain Standish! My dear
and dearly honored mother, who in her brave love endured the poverty and
the labors that my father had no skill to save her from. My mother, who
carried her noble husband upon her shoulders as it were, and would not
even die till he was dead. Myles Standish, I take shame to myself that I
am kin to you, and if ever I do wed, it shall be to lose my name and
forget my lineage."

She passed him going down the hill, but with a long step he overtook
her, saying almost timidly,--

"Nay, nay, thou 'rt over sharp with me, Barbara! I said, and I meant, no
word against thy mother, of whom I ever heard report as one of the
sweetest and faithfullest of wives"--

"There, that will do, sir. My mother needs no praise of yours, and,
thanks be to God, hath gone where she may rest from the burden of her
high marriage. Let me pass an 't please you, Master Captain."

"But Barbara, nay Barbara, stay but to hear a word"--

"There have been words enow and to spare. I go now to tell the governor
that I am minded to take passage in the Anne once more. My mother's folk
in Bedfordshire, yeomen all of them, Captain Standish, will make me gay
and welcome, and with them and such as them will I live and die."

"And fill thy leisure with fashioning silk purs