How she layeth her hand to the spindle and holdeth the distaff,

How she is not afraid of the snow for herself or her household,

Knowing her household are clothed with the scarlet cloth of her weaving!

So as she sat at her wheel one afternoon in the

Autumn,

Alden, who opposite sat, and was watching her dexterous fingers,

As if the thread she was spinning were that of his life and his fortune,

After a pause in their talk, thus spake to the sound of the spindle.

"Truly, Priscilla," he said, "when I see you spinning and spinning,

Never idle a moment, but thrifty and thoughtful of others,

Suddenly you are transformed, are visibly changed in a moment;

You are no longer Priscilla, but Bertha the Beautiful Spinner."

Here the light hand on the wheel grew swifter and swifter; the spindle

Uttered an angry snarl, and the thread snapped short in her fingers;

While the impetuous speaker, not heeding the mischief, continued:

"You are the beautiful Bertha, the spinner, the queen of Helvetia ;

She whose story I read at a stall in the streets of Southampton,

Who, as she rode on her palfrey, o'er valley and meadow and mountain,

Ever was spinning her thread from a distaff fixed to her saddle.

She was so thrifty and good, that her name passed into a proverb.

So shall it be with your own, when the spinningwheel shall no longer

Hum in the house of the farmer, and fill its chambers with music.

Then shall the mothers, reproving, relate how it was in their childhood,

Praising the good old times, and the days of Priscilla the spinner!"

Straight uprose from her wheel the beautiful Pu ritan maiden,

Pleased with the praise of her thrift from him whose praise was the sweetest,

Drew from the reel on the table a snowy skein of her spinning,

Thus making answer, meanwhile, to the flattering phrases of Alden:

"Come, you must not be idle; if I am a patterni for housewives,

Show yourself equally worthy of being the model of husbands.

Hold this skein on your hands, while I wind it, ready for knitting;

Then who knows but hereafter, when fashions have changed and the manners,

Fathers may talk to their sons of the good old times of John Alden!"

Thus, with a jest and a laugh, the skein on his hands she adjusted,

He sitting awkwardly there, with his arms extended before him,

She standing graceful, erect, and winding the thread from his fingers,

Sometimes chiding a little his clumsy manner of

holding,

Sometimes touching his hands, as she disentangled

expertly

Twist or knot in the yarn, unawares - for how could she help it?

Sending electrical thrills through every nerve in his body.

Lo! in the midst of this scene, a breathless mes

senger entered,

Bringing in hurry and heat the terrible news from the village.

Yes; Miles Standish was dead! - an Inaian had brought them the tidings,

Slain by a poisoned arrow, shot down in the front of the battle,

Into an ambush beguiled, cut off with the whole of his forces;

All the town would be burned, and ali the people be murdered!

Such were the tidings of evil that burst on the hearts of the hearers.

Silent and statue-like stood Priscilla, her face looking backward

Still at the face of the speaker, her arms uplifted in horror;

But John Alden, upstarting, as if the barb of the

arrow

Piercing the heart of his friend had struck his own, and had sundered

Once and forever the bonds that held him bound

as a captive,

Wild with excess of sensation, the awful delight of his freedom,

Mingled with pain and regret, unconscious of what he was doing,

Clasped, almost with a groan, the motionless form of Priscilla,

Pressing her close to his heart, as forever his own, and exclaiming :

"Those whom the Lord hath united, let no man put them asunder ! ”

Even as rivulets twain, from distant and sepa

rate sources,

Seeing each other afar, as they leap from the rocks, and pursuing

Each one its devious path, but drawing nearer and

nearer,

Rush together at last, at their trysting-place in the

forest;

So these lives that had run thus far in separate

channels,

Coming in sight of each other, then swerving and flowing asunder,

Parted by barriers strong, but drawing nearer and

nearer,

Rushed together at last, and one was lost in the other.

IX.

THE WEDDING-DAY

FORTH from the curtain of clouds, from the tent of purple and scarlet,

Issued the sun, the great High-Priest, in his garments resplendent,

Holiness unto the Lord, in letters of light, on his forehead,

Round the hem of his robe the golden bells and pomegranates.