reader of her own letters in these pages, will henceforward be one of
the enshrined saints of the New-England calendar. Little did she dream
at her marriage what a destiny was before her. There was in store for
her husband nearly thirty years of the truest heart-love and the closest
sympathy in religious trust and consecration with her. We may anticipate
our narrative at this point, to say that her situation did not allow her
to accompany him on his own removal to this side of the ocean, but she
followed him a year and a half afterwards, arriving in November, 1631,
with his eldest son and others of his children, having lost on the
voyage an infant whom he had probably never seen. Her death, in a
prevailing sickness, June 14, 1647, drew from her husband this tribute
to her:--"In this sickness the Governour's wife, daughter of Sir John
Tindal, Knight, left this world for a better, being about fifty-six
years of age: a woman of singular virtue, prudence, modesty, & piety &
specially beloved & honored of all the country." Though in the December
of the same year we find the Governor again married, now to the Widow
Martha Coytemore, we refer the incident to wilderness-straits and the
exactions of necessity or expediency in domestic life.

But we must return to Margaret, the bride. It seems that there was some
objection offered to Winthrop's suit by the lady's relatives. In one of
the two charming letters which are preserved as written during his
courtship to her, he refers to some "unequall conflicte" which she had
to bear. These two letters, with one addressed to the lady by Father
Adam, are unique as specimens of Puritan love-making. Solomon's Song is
here put to the best use for which it is adapted, its only safe use.

The family-letters, which now increase in number, and vastly in their
cheerfulness and radiance of spirit, and the birth of more children,
present to us the most captivating glimpses of the English life of our