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N the "Colony Records" of Plymouth it is set down that a certain John Williams lived unhappily with his wife—a circumstance which was as conceivable in that austere community as in less godly towns. But the Puritan magistrate who, in the year 1666, undertook to settle this connubial quarrel, had no respect for that compelling word, "incompatibility." The afflicted couple were admonished "to apply themselves to such waies as might make for the recovery of peace and love betwixt them. And for that end, the Court requested Isacke Bucke to bee officious therein."

It is the delight and despair of readers, especially of readers inclined to the intimacies of history, that they are so often told the beginnings of things, and left to conjecture the end. How did