Long before this crisis had come, Thomas Dudley had been recalled
by the Earl of Lincoln, who found it impossible to dispense with
his services, and the busy life began again. Whether Anne missed
the constant excitement the strenuous spiritual life enforced on
all who made part of John Cotton's congregation, there is no
record, but one may infer from a passage in her diary that a
reaction had set in, and that youth asserted itself.

"But as I grew up to bee about fourteen or fifteen I found my
heart more carnall and sitting loose from God, vanity and the
follys of youth take hold of me.

"About sixteen, the Lord layd his hand sore upon me and smott mee
with the small-pox. When I was in my affliction, I besought the
Lord, and confessed my Pride and Vanity and he was entreated of
me, and again restored me. But I rendered not to him according to
ye benefit received."

Here is the only hint as to personal appearance. "Pride and
Vanity," are more or less associated with a fair countenance, and
though no record gives slightest detail as to form or feature,
there is every reason to suppose that the event, very near at
hand, which altered every prospect in life, was influenced in
degree, at least, by considerations slighted in later years, but
having full weight with both. That Thomas Dudley was a "very
personable man," we know, and there are hints that his daughter
resembled him, though it was against the spirit of the time to
record mere accidents of coloring or shape. But Anne's future
husband was a strikingly handsome man, not likely to ignore such