Betsey Ring, and Edward Bangs and Lyddy Hicks, and Mary Warren and Robert Bartlett, three pair of sweethearts together, and here they all are at the door."

But as the more lively Priscilla ran to open it, the governor's hearty voice was heard without, crying :—

"Welcome! Welcome, friends! I was called out for a moment, but have come home just in the nick of time and brought the captain with me.

"Now I do hope Myles has put on his ruff, and his other doublet that I laid out," murmured Barbara in Priscilla's ear. "When the governor and he get together, the world's well lost for both of them."

"Nay, he's all right, and a right proper man, as he always was," returned Priscilla, with a quick glance at the square figure and commanding head of the Captain of Plymouth, as he entered the room and smiled in courtly fashion at Dame Bradford's greeting.

"And here's your John, a head and shoulders above all the rest," added Barbara, good-naturedly, as Alden, the Saxon giant, strode into the room and looked fondly across it at his wife.

Another half hour and all were gathered about the three long tables improvised from boards and barrels, but all covered with the fine napery brought from Holland by Alice Bradford, who had the true housewife's love of elegant damask, and during Edward Southworth's life was able to indulge it, laying up such store of table damask, of fine Holland "pillowbers," and "cubboard cloths," towels of Holland, of dowlas, and of lockorum, and sheets of various qualities from "fine Holland " to tow (the latter probably spun and woven at home), that the inventory of her personal estate is as good reading to her descendants as a cookery book to a hungry man.

Plenty of trenchers both of pewter and wood lined the table, and by each lay a napkin and a spoon, but neither knives nor forks, the latter implements not having yet been invented, except in the shape of a powerful trident to lift the boiled beef from the kettle, while table knives, as Priscilla Alden had intimated, were still regarded as curious implements of extreme luxury. A knife of a different order, sometimes a clash knife, sometimes a sheath knife, or even a dagger, was generally car. ried by each man, and used upon certain pièces de resistance, such as boar's head, a roasted peacock, a shape of brawn, a

powdered and cloved and browned ham, or such other triumphs of the culinary art as must be served whole.

Such dishes were carried around the table, and every guest, taking hold of the morsel he coveted with his napkin, sliced it off with his own knife, displaying the elegance of his table manners by the skill with which he did it. But as saffron was a favorite condiment of the day, and pearline was not yet invented, one sighs in contemplating the condition of these napkins, and ceases to wonder at the store of them laid up by thrifty housekeepers.

Ordinarily, however, the meat was divided into morsels before appearing on the table, and thus was easily managed with the spoon,—or with the fingers.

Between each two plates stood a pewter or wooden basin of clam chowder, prepared by Priscilla Alden, who was held in Plymouth to possess a magic touch for this and several other dishes.

From these each guest transferred a portion to his own plate, except when two supped merrily from the same bowl in token of friendly intimacy. This first course finished and the bowls removed, all eyes turned upon the governor, who rose in his place at the head of the principal table, where were gathered the more important guests, and, looking affectionately up and down the board, said:

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Friends, it hardly needs that I should say that you are welcome, for I see none that are ever less than welcome beneath this roof; but I well may thank you for the cheer your friendly faces bring to my heart to-night, and I well may pray you, of your goodness, to bestow upon my young sister here the same hearty kindness you have ever shown to me and mine." A murmur of eager assent went round the board, and the governor smiled cordially, as he grasped in both hands the great two-handled loving cup standing before him,—a grand cup, a noble cup, of the measure of two quarts, of purest silver, beautifully fashioned, and richly carved, as tradition said, by the hand of Benvenuto Cellini himself; so precious a property that Katharine White, daughter of an English bishop, was proud to bring it as almost her sole dowry to John Carver, her husband. With him it came to the New World, and was used at the Feast of Treaty between the colonists and Massasoit, chief of the native owners of the soil. Katharine Carver, dying broken-hearted six weeks after her husband, bequeathed

the cup to William Bradford, his successor in the arduous post of Governor of the Colony, and from him it passed down into that Hades of lost and all but forgotten treasures, which may, for aught we know, become the recreation ground for the spirits of antiquarians.

Filled to the brim with generous Canary, a pure and fine wine in those days, it crowned the table, and William Bradford, steadily raising it to his lips, smiled gravely upon his guests, adding to his little speech of welcome:

"I pledge you my hearty good will, friends!" then drank sincerely yet modestly, and giving one handle to Myles Standish, who sat at his left hand, he retained his hold at the other side while the captain drank, and in turn gave one handle to Mistress Winslow, who came next; and so, all standing to honor the pledge of love and good will, the cup passed round the board and came to Elder Brewster, at the governor's right hand; but he, having drunk, looked around with his paternal smile and said:

"There is yet enough in the loving cup, friends, for each one to wet his lips, if nothing more, and I propose that we do so with our hearty welcome and best wishes to Mistress Priscilla Carpenter."

Once more the cup went gayly round, and reached the Elder so dry that he smiled, as he placed it to his lips, with a bow toward Pris savoring more of his early days in the court of Queen Bess than of New England's solitudes.

"And now to work, my friends, to work!" cried the governor. "I for one am famished, sith my dame was so busy at noontide with that wonderful structure yonder that she gave me naught but bread and cheese."

Everybody laughed, and Alice Bradford colored like a red, red rose, yet bravely answered:

"The governor will have his jest, but I hope my raised pie will suffer roundly for its interference with his dinner."

"Faith, dame, but we'll all help to punish it," exclaimed Stephen Hopkins, gazing fondly at the elaborate mass of pastry representing, not inartistically, a castle with battlements and towers, and a floating banner of silk bearing an heraldic device. "Standish! we call upon you to lead us to the assault ! "

"Nay, if Captain Standish is summoned to the field, my fortress surrenders without even a parley," said Alice Bradford, as she gracefully drew the little banner from its place,

and, laying it aside, removed a tower, a bastion, and a section of the battlement from the doomed fortress, and, loading a plate with the spoils of its treasury, planted the banner upon the top, and sent it to the captain, who received it with a bow and a smile, but never a word.

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"Make a

Speak up, man!" cried Hopkins, boisterously. gallant speech in return for the courtesy of so fair a castellaine." "Mistress Bradford needs no speech to assure her of my devoir," replied the captain, simply, and the governor added:

"Our captain speaks more by deeds than words, and Gideon is his most eloquent interpreter. You have not brought him to-day, Captain."

"No; Gideon sulks in these days of peace, and seldom stirs abroad."

"Long may he be idle!" exclaimed the Elder, and a gentle murmur around the board told that the women at least echoed the prayer.

But Hopkins, seated next to Mistress Bradford, and watching her distribution of the pie, cared naught for war or peace until he secured a trencher of its contents, and presently cried :

"Now, by my faith, I did not know such a pye as this could be concocted out of Yorkshire! 'Tis perfect in all its parts: fowl, and game, and pork, and forcemeat, and yolks of eggs, and curious art of spicery, and melting bits of pastry within, and stout-built walls without; in fact, there is naught lacking to such a pye as my mother used to make before I had the wit to know such pyes sing not on every bush.”

"You're Yorkshire, then, Master Hopkins?" asked John Howland, who with his young wife, once Elizabeth Tilley, sat opposite.

"Yes, I'm Yorkshire, root and branch, and you're Essex, and the captain and the governor Lancashire, but all shaken up in a bag now, and turned into New Englanders, and since the Yorkshire pye has come over along with us I'm content for

one."

A general laugh indorsed this patriotic speech, but Myles Standish, toying with the silken banner of the now sacked and ruined fortress, said in Bradford's ear:

"All very well for a man who has naught to lose in the old country. But for my part I mean to place at least my oldest son in the seat of his fathers."

VOL. XIII. - - 13

The governor smiled, and then sighed. "Nor can I quite forget the lands of Austerfield held by Bradfords and Hansons for more than one century, and the path beside the Idle, where Brewster and I walked and talked in the days of my first awakening to the real things of life"

"Real things of life, say you, Governor?" broke in Hopkins' strident voice; "well, if there is aught more real in its merit than this roasted suckling, I wish that I might meet with it."

And seizing with his napkin the hind leg of the little roasted pig presented to him by Christian Penn, the old campaigner deftly sliced it off with his sheath knife and devoured it in the most inartificial manner possible.

It was probably about this epoch that our popular saying, "Fingers were made before forks," took shape and force.

To the chowder, and the "pye," and the roasted suckling succeeded a mighty dish of succotash, that compound of dried beans, hulled corn, salted beef, pork, and chicken which may be called the charter dish of Plymouth; then came wild fowl dressed in various ways, a great bowl of " sallet," of Priscilla Alden's composition, and at last various sweet dishes, still served at the end of a meal, although soon after it was the mode to take them first.

"Oh, dear, when will the dignitaries stop eating and drinking and making compliments to each other?" murmured Priscilla Carpenter to Mary Warren at the side table where the girls and lads were grouped together, enjoying themselves as much as their elders, albeit in less ceremonious fashion.

"There! Your sister has laid down her napkin, and is gazing steadfastly at the governor, with Get up and say Grace' in her eye," replied Mary, nudging Jane Cooke to enforce silence; whereat that merry maid burst into a giggle, joined by Sarah and Elizabeth Warren, and Mary Allerton, and Betsey Ring, while Edward Bangs, and Robert Bartlett, and Sam Jenney, and Philip De la Noye, and Thomas Clarke, and John Cooke chuckled in sympathy, yet knew not what at.

A warning yet very gentle glance from Dame Bradford's eyes stifled the noise, and nearly did as much for its authors, who barely managed to preserve sobriety, while the governor returned thanks to the Giver of all good; so soon, however, as the elder party moved away, the painfully suppressed giggle burst into a storm of merriment, which as it subsided, was renewed in fullest vigor by Sarah Warden's bewildered inquiry,— "What are we all laughing at?"