child. She wished, she said, to be married by him and no other at
Governor Nicholls's house, rather than at her own home at Boston, where
there was none other of her name.

The old pastor had come that afternoon, and she had asked him to see her
that evening. Not long after Morris had done with singing there came a
tapping at her door. She answered and old Pastor Macklin entered, a
white-haired man of kindly yet stern countenance, by nature a gentleman,
by practice a bigot. He came forward and took both her hands as she
rose. "My dear young lady!" he said, and smiled kindly at her. After a
word of greeting she offered him a chair, and came again to the window.

Presently she looked up and said very simply: "I am going to be married.
You have known me ever since I was born: do you think I will make a good
wife?"

"With prayer and chastening of the spirit, my daughter," he said.

"But suppose that at the altar I remembered another man?"

"A sin, my child, for which should be due sorrow." The girl smiled
sadly. She felt poignantly how little he could help her.

"And if the man were a Catholic and a Frenchman?" she said.

"A papist and a Frenchman!" he cried, lifting up his hands.
"My daughter, you ever were too playful. You speak of things impossible.
I pray you listen." Jessica raised her hand as if to stop him and to
speak herself, but she let him go on. With the least encouragement she
might have told him all. She had had her moment of weakness, but now it