The people flocked to hear him, and until the removal to Ipswich,
there is no doubt that Anne Bradstreet and her husband met him
often, and that he had his share in confirming her faith and
stimulating her thought. Dudley and he remained friends to the
end, and conferred often on public as well as private matters, but
there are no family details save the record of the marriage in
later years, which united them all more closely, than even their
common suffering had done.

Health alone, or the want of it, gave sufficient reason for at
least a shadow of gloom, and there were others as substantial, for
fresh changes were at hand, and various circumstances had brought
her family under a general criticism against which Anne Bradstreet
always revolted. Minute personal criticism was the order of the
day, considered an essential in holding one another in the
straight path, and the New England relish for petty detail may
have had its origin in this religious gossip. As usual the first
trouble would seem to have arisen from envy, though undoubtedly
its originator strenuously denied any such suspicion. The houses
at Cambridge had gradually been made more and more comfortable,
though even in the beginning, they were the rudest of structures,
the roofs covered with thatch, the fire-places generally made of
rough stones and the chimneys of boards plastered with clay. To
shelter was the only requisite demanded, but Dudley, who desired
something more, had already come under public censure, the
governor and other assistants joining in the reproach that "he did
not well to bestow such cost about wainscotting and adorning his
house in the beginning of a plantation, both in regard to the
expense, and the example."