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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Way to Peace, by Margaret Deland
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Way to Peace
+
+Author: Margaret Deland
+
+Posting Date: January 10, 2009 [EBook #2685]
+Release Date: June, 2001
+Last Updated: November 4, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WAY TO PEACE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WAY TO PEACE
+
+By Margaret Deland
+
+
+
+
+     TO LORIN DELAND
+
+     KENNEBUNKPORT, MAINE AUGUST 12TH, 1910
+
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+ATHALIA HALL stopped to get her breath and look back over the road
+climbing steeply up from the covered bridge. It was a little after five,
+and the delicate air of dawn was full of wood and pasture scents--the
+sweetness of bay and the freshness of dew-drenched leaves. In the valley
+night still hung like gauze under the trees, but the top of the hill was
+glittering with sunshine.
+
+“Why, we’ve hardly come halfway!” she said.
+
+Her husband, plodding along behind her, nodded ruefully. “Hardly,” he
+said.
+
+In her slim prettiness Athalia Hall looked like a girl, but she was
+thirty-four. Part of the girlishness lay in the smoothness of her white
+forehead and in the sincere intensity of her gaze. She wore a blue linen
+dress, and there was a little, soft, blue scarf under her chin; her
+white hat, with pink roses and loops of gray-blue ribbon, shadowed
+eager, unhumorous eyes, the color of forget-me-nots. Her husband was
+her senior by several years--a large, loose-limbed man, with a scholarly
+face and mild, calm eyes--eyes that were full of a singular tenacity of
+purpose. Just now his face showed the fatigue of the long climb up-hill;
+and when his wife, stopping to look back over the glistening tops of the
+birches, said, “I believe it’s half a mile to the top yet!” he agreed,
+breathlessly. “Hard work!” he said.
+
+“It will be worth it when I get to the top and can see the view!” she
+declared, and began to climb again.
+
+“All the same, this road will be mighty hot when the sun gets full on
+it,” her husband said; and added, anxiously, “I wish I had made you
+rest in the station until train-time.” She flung out her hands with an
+exclamation: “Rest! I hate rest!”
+
+“Hold on, and I’ll give you a stick,” he called to her; “it’s a help
+when you’re climbing.” He pulled down a slender birch, and, setting his
+foot on it, broke it off at the root. She stopped, with an impatient
+gesture, and waited while he tore off handfuls of leaves and whittled
+away the side-shoots.
+
+
+“Do hurry, Lewis!” she said.
+
+They had left their train at five o’clock in the morning, and had been
+sitting in the frowsy station, sleepily awaiting the express, when
+Athalia had had this fancy for climbing the hill so that she might see
+the view.
+
+“It looks pretty steep,” her husband warned her.
+
+“It will be something to do, anyhow!” she said; and added, with a
+restless sigh, “but you don’t understand that, I suppose.”
+
+“I guess I do--after a fashion,” he said, smiling at her. It was only in
+love’s fashion, for really he was incapable of quite understanding her.
+To the country lawyer of sober piety and granite sense of duty, the
+rich variety of her moods was a continual wonder and sometimes a painful
+bewilderment. But whether he understood the impetuous inconsequence
+of her temperament “after a fashion,” or whether he failed entirely to
+follow the complexity of her thought, he met all her fancies with a sort
+of tender admiration. People said that Squire Hall was henpecked; they
+also said that he had married beneath him. His father had been a
+judge and his grandfather a minister; he himself was a graduate of a
+fresh-water college, which later, when he published his exegesis on the
+Prophet Daniel, had conferred its little degree upon him and felt that
+he was a “distinguished son.” With such a lineage he might have done
+better, people said, than to marry that girl, who was the most fickle
+creature and no housekeeper, and whose people--this they told one
+another in reserved voices--were PLAY-ACTORS! Athalia’s mother, who
+had been the “play-actor,” had left her children an example of
+duty--domestic as well as professional duty--faithfully done. As she did
+not leave anything else, Athalia added nothing to the Hall fortune; but
+Lewis’s law practice, which was hardly more than conveyancing now and
+then, was helped out by a sawmill which the Halls had owned for two
+generations. So, as things were, they were able to live in humdrum
+prosperity which gave Lewis plenty of time to browse about among his
+grandfather’s old theological books, and by-and-by to become a very
+sound Hebrew scholar, and spared Athalia much wholesome occupation which
+would have been steadying to her eager nature. She was one of those
+people who express every passing emotion, as a flower expresses each
+wind that sways it upon its stalk. But with expression the emotion
+ended.
+
+“But she isn’t fickle,” Lewis had defended her once to a privileged
+relation who had made the accusation, basing it on the fact that Athalia
+had sewed her fingers off for the Missionary Society one winter and
+done nothing the next--“Athalia ISN’T fickle,” Lewis explained;
+“fickle people are insincere. Athalia is perfectly sincere, but she
+is temporary; that’s all. Anyway, she wants to do something else this
+winter, and ‘Thalia must have her head.”
+
+“Your head’s better than hers, young man,” the venturesome relative
+insisted.
+
+“But it must be her head and not mine, Aunty, when it comes to doing
+what she thinks is right, even if it’s wrong,” he said, smiling.
+
+“Well, tell her she’s a little fool!” cried the old lady, viciously.
+
+“You can’t do that with ‘Thalia,” Lewis explained, patiently, “because
+it would make her unhappy. She takes everything so dreadfully hard; she
+feels things more than other people do.”
+
+“Lewis,” said the little, old, wrinkled, privileged great-aunt, “think
+a little less of her feelings and a little more of your own, or you’ll
+make a mess of things.”
+
+Lewis Hall was too respectful to tell the old lady what he thought of
+such selfish advice; he merely did not act upon it. Instead, he went on
+giving a great deal of thought to Athalia’s “feelings.” That was why
+he and she were climbing the hill in the dewy silence of this August
+morning. Athalia had “felt” that she wanted to see the view--though
+it would have been better for her to have rested in the station,
+Lewis thought;--(“I ought to have coaxed her out of it,” he reproached
+himself.) It certainly was a hard walk, considering that it followed
+a broken night in the sleeping-car. They had left the train at five
+o’clock in the morning, and were sitting in the station awaiting the
+express when Athalia had had this impulse to climb the hill. “It looks
+pretty steep,” Lewis objected; and she flung out her hands with an
+impatient gesture.
+
+“I love to climb!” she said. So here they were, almost at the top,
+panting and toiling, Athalia’s skirts wet with dew, and Lewis’s face
+drawn with fatigue.
+
+“Look!” she said; “it’s all open! We can sit down and see all over the
+world!” She left the road, springing lightly through the fringing bay
+and briers toward an open space on the hillside. “There is a gate in the
+wall!” she called out; “it seems to be some sort of enclosure. Lewis,
+help me to open the gate! Hurry! What a queer place! What do you suppose
+it is?”
+
+The gate opened into a little field bounded by a stone wall; the grass
+had been lately mowed, and the stubble, glistening with dew, showed
+the curving swaths of the scythe; across it, in even lines from wall to
+wall, were rows of small stakes painted black. Here and there were faint
+depressions, low, green cradles in the grass; each depression was
+marked at the head and foot by these iron stakes, hardly higher than the
+stubble itself.
+
+“Shakers’ graveyard, I guess,” Lewis said; “I’ve heard that they don’t
+use gravestones. Peaceful place, isn’t it?”
+
+Her vivid face was instantly grave. “Very peaceful! Oh,” she added, as
+they sat down in the shadow of a pine, “don’t you sometimes want to lie
+down and sleep--deep down in the grass and flowers?”
+
+“Well,” he confessed, “I don’t believe it would be as interesting as
+walking round on top of them.”
+
+She looked at him in despair.
+
+“Come, now,” he defended himself, “you don’t take much to peace yourself
+at home.”
+
+“You don’t understand!” she said, passionately.
+
+“There, there, little Tay,” he said, smiling, and putting a soothing
+hand on hers; “I guess I do--after a fashion.”
+
+It was very still; below them the valley had suddenly brimmed with
+sunshine that flickered and twinkled on the birch leaves or shimmered
+on sombre stretches of pine and spruce. Close at hand, pennyroyal grew
+thick in the shadow of the wall; and just beyond, mullen candles cast
+slender bars of shade across the grass. The sunken graves and the lines
+of iron markers lay before them.
+
+“How quiet it is!” she said, in a whisper.
+
+“I guess I’ll smoke,” Lewis said, and scratched a match on his trousers.
+
+“How can you!” she protested; “it is profane!”
+
+He gave her an amused look, but lighted his cigar and smoked dreamily
+for a minute; then he drew a long breath. “I was pretty tired,” he said,
+and turned to glance back at the road. A horse and cart were coming
+in at the open gate; the elderly driver, singing to himself, drew up
+abruptly at the sight of the two under the pine-tree, then drove toward
+them, the wheels of the cart jolting cheerfully over the cradling
+graves. He had a sickle in his hand, and as he clambered down from the
+seat, he said, with friendly curiosity:
+
+“You folks are out early, for the world’s people.”
+
+“Is this a graveyard?” Athalia demanded, impetuously.
+
+“Yee,” he said, smiling; “it’s our burial-place; we’re Shakers.”
+
+“But why are there just the stakes--without names?”
+
+“Why should there be names?” he said, whimsically; “they have new names
+now.”
+
+“Where is your community? Can we go and visit it?”
+
+“Yee; but we’re not much to see,” he said; “just men and women, like
+you. Only we’re happy. I guess that’s all the difference.”
+
+“But what a difference!” she exclaimed; and Lewis smiled.
+
+“I’ve come up for pennyroyal,” the Shaker explained, sociably; “it grows
+thick round here.”
+
+“Tell me about the Shakers,” Athalia pleaded. “What do you believe?”
+
+“Well,” he said, a simple shrewdness glimmering in his brown eyes,
+“if you go to the Trustees’ House, down there in the valley, Eldress
+Hannah’ll tell you all about us. And the sisters have baskets and pretty
+truck to sell--things the world’s people like. Go and ask the Eldress
+what we believe, and she’ll show you the baskets.”
+
+She turned eagerly to her husband. “Never mind the ten-o’clock train,
+Lewis. Let us go!”
+
+“We could take a later train, all right,” he admitted, “but--”
+
+“Oh, PLEASE!” she entreated, joyously. “We’ll help you pick pennyroyal,”
+ she added to the Shaker.
+
+But this he would not allow. “I doubt you’d be careful enough,” he said,
+mildly; “Sister Lydia was the only female I ever knew who could pick
+herbs.”
+
+“Do you get paid for the work you do?” Athalia asked, practically. Lewis
+flushed at the boldness of such a question, but the old man chuckled.
+
+“Should I pay myself?” he asked.
+
+“You own everything in common, don’t you?” Lewis said.
+
+“Yee,” said the Shaker; “we’re all brothers and sisters. Nobody tries to
+get ahead of anybody else.”
+
+“And you don’t believe in marriage?” Athalia asserted.
+
+“We are as the angels of God,” he said, simply.
+
+He left them and began to sickle his herbs, with the cheerfully obvious
+purpose of escaping further interruption.
+
+Athalia instantly bubbled over with questions, but Lewis could tell her
+hardly more of the Shakers than she knew already.
+
+“No, it isn’t free love,” he said; “they’re decent enough. They believe
+in general love, not particular, I suppose.... ‘Thalia, do you think
+it’s worth while to wait over a train just to see the settlement?”
+
+“Of course it is! He said they were happy; I would like to see what kind
+of life makes people happy.”
+
+He looked at the lighted end of his cigar and smiled, but he said
+nothing. Afterward, as they followed the cart across the field and out
+into the road, Athalia asked the old herb-gatherer many questions about
+the happiness of the community life, which he answered patiently enough.
+Once or twice he tried to draw into their talk the silent husband
+who walked at her side, but Lewis had nothing to say. Only when some
+reference was made to one of the Prophecies did he look up in sudden
+interest. “You take that to mean the Judgment, do you?” he said. And for
+the rest of the walk to the settlement the two men discussed the point,
+the Shaker walking with one hand on the heavy shaft, for the support it
+gave him, and Lewis keeping step with him.
+
+At the foot of the hill the road widened into a grassy street, on both
+sides of which, under the elms and maples, were the community houses,
+big and substantial, but gauntly plain; their yellow paint, flaking and
+peeling here and there, shone clean and fresh in the sparkle of morning.
+Except for a black cat whose fur glistened like jet, dozing on a white
+doorstep, the settlement, steeped in sunshine, showed no sign of life.
+There was a strange remoteness from time about the place; a sort of
+emptiness, and a silence that silenced even Athalia.
+
+“Where IS everybody?” she said, in a lowered voice; as she spoke, a
+child in a blue apron came from an open doorway and tugged a basket
+across the street.
+
+“Are there children here?” Lewis asked, surprised; and their guide said,
+sadly:
+
+“Not as many as there ought to be. The new school laws have made a great
+difference. We’ve only got two. Folks used to send ‘em to us to bring
+up; oftentimes they stayed on after they were of age. Sister Lydia came
+that way. Well, well, she tired of us, Lydy did, poor girl! She went
+back into the world twenty years ago, now. And Sister Jane, she was a
+bound-out child, too,” he rambled on; “she came here when she was six;
+she’s seventy now.”
+
+“What!” Lewis exclaimed; “has she never known anything but--this?”
+
+His shocked tone did not disturb the old man. “Want to see my
+herb-house?” he said. “Guess you’ll find some of the sisters in the
+sorting-room. I’m Nathan Dale,” he added, courteously.
+
+They had come to the open door of a great, weather-beaten building, from
+whose open windows an aromatic breath wandered out into the summer
+air. As they crossed the worn threshold, Athalia stopped and caught her
+breath in the overpowering scent of drying herbs; then they followed
+Brother Nathan up a shaky flight of steps to the loft. Here some elderly
+women, sitting on low benches, were sorting over great piles of herbs in
+silence--the silence, apparently, of peace and meditation. Two of
+them were dressed like world’s people, but the others wore small gray
+shoulder-capes buttoned to their chins, and little caps of white net
+stretched smoothly over wire frames; the narrow shirrings inside the
+frames fitted so close to their peaceful, wrinkled foreheads that no
+hair could be seen.
+
+“I wish I could sit and sort herbs!” Athalia said, under her breath.
+
+Brother Nathan chuckled. “For how long?” he asked; and then introduced
+her to the three workers, who greeted her calmly and went on sorting
+their herbs. The loft was dark and cool; the window-frames, in which
+there were no sashes, opened wide on the still August fields and woods;
+the occasional brief words of the sorting-women seemed to drop into a
+pool of fragrant silence. The two visitors followed Brother Nathan down
+the room between piles of sorted herbs, and out into the sunshine again.
+Athalia drew a breath of ecstasy.
+
+“It’s all so beautifully tranquil!” she whispered, looking about her
+with blue, excited eyes.
+
+“Tay and tranquillity!” Lewis said, with an amused laugh.
+
+But as they went along the grassy street this sense of tranquillity
+closed about them like a palpable peace. Now and then they stopped and
+spoke to some one--always an elderly person; and in each old face the
+experiences that life writes in unerasable lines about eyes and lips
+were hidden by a veil of calmness that was curiously unhuman.
+
+“It isn’t canny, exactly,” Lewis told his wife, in a low voice. But she
+did not seem to hear him. She asked many questions of Eldress Hannah,
+who had taken them in charge, and once or twice she burst into impetuous
+appreciation of the idea of brotherhood, and even of certain theological
+principles--which last diverted her husband very much. Eldress Hannah
+showed them the dairy, and the work-room, and all there was to see,
+with a patient hospitality that kept them at an infinite distance. She
+answered Lewis’s questions about the community with a sad directness.
+
+“Yee; there are not many of us now. The world’s people say we’re dying
+out. But the Lord will preserve the remnant to redeem the world, young
+man. Yee; when they come in from the world they cast their possessions
+into the whole; we own nothing, for ourselves. Nay; we don’t have many
+come. Brother William was the last. Why did he come?” She looked coldly
+at Athalia, who had asked the question. “Because he saw the way to
+peace. He’d had strife enough in the world. Yee,” she admitted, briefly,
+“some fall from grace, and leave us. The last was Lydia. She was one
+of our children, and I thought she was of the chosen. But she was only
+thirty when she fell away, and you can’t expect wisdom at that age. That
+was nearly twenty years ago. When she has tasted the dregs of the world
+she will come back to us--if she lives,” Eldress Hannah ended.
+
+Athalia listened breathlessly, her rapt, unhumorous eyes fixed on
+Eldress Hannah’s still face. Now and then she asked a question, and
+once cried out that, after all, why wasn’t it the way to live? Peace and
+self-sacrifice and love! “Oh,” she said, turning to her husband, “can’t
+you feel the attraction of it? I should think even you could feel it!”
+
+“I think I feel it--after a fashion,” he said, mildly; “I think I have
+always felt the attraction of community life.”
+
+Afterward, when they had left all this somnolent peace and begun the
+long walk back to the station, he explained what he meant: “I couldn’t
+say so before the Eldress, but of course there are times when anybody
+can feel the charm of getting rid of personal responsibility--and that
+is what community life really means. It’s the relief of being a little
+cog in a big machine; in fact, the very attraction of it is a sort
+of temptation, to my way of looking at it. But it--well, it made me
+sleepy,” he confessed.
+
+For once his wife had no reply. She was very quiet on that return
+journey in the cars, and in the days that followed she kept referring to
+their visit with a persistence that surprised her husband. She thought
+the net caps were beautiful; she thought the exquisite cleanness of
+everything was like a perfume--“the perfume of a wild rose!” she said,
+ecstatically. She thought the having everything in common was the way to
+live. “And just think how peaceful it is!”
+
+“Well, yes,” Lewis said; “I suppose it’s peaceful--after a fashion.
+Anything that isn’t alive is peaceful.”
+
+“But their idea of brotherhood is the highest kind of life!”
+
+“The only fault I have to find with it is that it isn’t human,” he said,
+mildly. He had no desire to prove or disprove anything; Athalia was
+looking better, just because she was interested in something, and that
+was enough for Lewis. When she proposed to read a book on Shakerism
+aloud, he fell into her mood with what was, for him, enthusiasm; he
+declared he would like nothing better, and he put his daily paper aside
+without a visible regret.
+
+“Well,” he admitted, “I must say there’s more to it than I supposed.
+They’ve studied the Prophecies; that’s evident. And they’re not narrow
+in their belief. They’re really Unitarians.”
+
+“Narrow?” she said--“they are as wide as heaven itself! And, oh, the
+peace of it!”
+
+“But they are NOT human,” he would insist, smiling; “no marriage--that’s
+not human, little Tay.”
+
+It was not until two months later that he began to feel vaguely uneasy.
+“Yes; it’s interesting,” he admitted; “but nobody in these days would
+want to be a Shaker.” To which she replied, boldly, “Why not?”
+
+That was all, but it was enough. Lewis Hall’s face suddenly sobered.
+He had not stumbled along behind her in all her emotional experiences
+without learning to read the guide-posts to her thought. “I hope she’ll
+get through with it soon,” he said to himself, with a worried frown;
+“it isn’t wholesome for a mind like ‘Thalia’s to dwell on this kind of
+thing.”
+
+It was in November that she broke to him that she had written Eldress
+Hannah to ask if she might come and visit the community, and had been
+answered “Yee.”
+
+Lewis was silent with consternation; he went out to the sawmill and
+climbed up into the loft to think it all out alone. Should he forbid
+it? He knew that was nonsense; in the first place, his conception of
+the relation of husband and wife did not include that kind of thing; but
+more than that, opposition would, he said to himself, “push her in.”
+ Not into Shakerism; “‘Thalia couldn’t be a Shaker to save her life,” he
+thought, with an involuntary smile; but into an excited discontent with
+her comfortable, prosaic life. No; definite opposition to the visit must
+not be thought of--but he must try and persuade her not to go. How? What
+plea could he offer? His own loneliness without her he could not
+bring himself to speak of; he shrank from taking what seemed to him an
+advantage. He might urge that she would find it cold and uncomfortable
+in those old frame houses high up on the hills; or that it would be bad
+for her health to take the rather wearing journey at this time of year.
+But he knew too well how little effect any such prudent counsels would
+have. The very fact that her interest had lasted for more than three
+months showed that it had really struck roots into her mind, and mere
+prudence would not avail much. Still, he would urge prudence; then, if
+she was determined, she must go. “She’ll get sick of it in a fortnight,”
+ he said; but for the present he must let her have her head, even if
+she was making a mistake. She had a right to have her head, he reminded
+himself--“but I must tell those people to keep her warm, she takes cold
+so easily.”
+
+He got up and looked out of the window; below, in the race, there was a
+jam of logs, and the air was keen with the pungent smell of sawdust and
+new boards. The whir and thud of the machinery down-stairs sent a faint
+quiver through the planks under his feet. “The mill will net a good
+profit this year,” he said to himself, absently. “‘Thalia can have
+pretty nearly anything she wants.” And even as he said it he had a
+sudden, vague misgiving: if she didn’t have everything she wanted,
+perhaps she would be happier? But the idea was too new and too subtle to
+follow up, so the result of that troubled hour in the mill-chamber was
+only that he made no very resolute objection to Athalia’s acceptance
+of Eldress Hannah’s permission to come. It had been given grudgingly
+enough.
+
+
+The family were gathered in the sitting-room; they had had their
+supper--the eight elderly women and the three elderly men, all that were
+left of the community. The room had the austere and shining cleanness
+which Athalia had called a perfume, but it was full of homely comfort.
+A blue-and-white rag carpet in the centre left a border of bare floor,
+painted pumpkin-yellow; there was a glittering airtight stove with
+isinglass windows that shone like square, red eyes; a gay patchwork
+cushion in the seat of a rocking-chair was given up to the black cat,
+whose sleek fur glistened in the lamplight. Three of the sisters knitted
+silently; two others rocked back and forth, their tired, idle hands
+in their laps, their eyes closed; the other three yawned, and spoke
+occasionally between themselves of their various tasks. Brother Nathan
+read his weekly FARMER; Brother William turned over the leaves of
+a hymn-book and appeared to count them with noiseless, moving lips;
+Brother George cut pictures out of the back of a magazine, yawning
+sometimes, and looking often at his watch. Into this quietness Eldress
+Hannah’s still voice came:
+
+“I have heard from Lydia again.” There was a faint stir, but no one
+spoke. “The Lord is dealing with her,” Eldress Hannah said; “she is in
+great misery.”
+
+Brother George nodded. “That is good; He works in a mysterious
+way--she’s real miserable, is she? Well, well; that’s good. The mercies
+of the Lord are everlasting,” he ended, in a satisfied voice, and began
+to read again.
+
+“Amen!--amen!” said Brother William, vaguely.
+
+“Poor Lydy!” Brother Nathan murmured.
+
+“And I had another letter,” the Eldress proceeded, “from that young
+woman who came here in August--Athalia Hall; do you remember?--she asked
+two questions to the minute! She wants to visit us.”
+
+Brother Nathan looked at her over his spectacles, and one of the sisters
+opened her eyes.
+
+“I don’t see why she should,” Eldress Hannah added.
+
+Two of the old brothers nodded agreement.
+
+“The curiosity of the world’s people does not help their souls,” said
+one of the knitters.
+
+“She thinks we walk in the Way to Peace,” said the Eldress.
+
+“Yee; we do,” said Brother George.
+
+“Shall I tell her ‘nay’?” the Eldress questioned, calmly.
+
+“Yee,” said Brother George; and the dozing sisters murmured “Yee.”
+
+“Wait,” said Brother Nathan; “her husband--HE has something to him. Let
+her come.”
+
+“But if she visited us, how would that affect him?” Eldress Hannah
+asked, surprised into faint animation.
+
+“If she was moved to stay it would affect him,” Brother Nathan said,
+dryly; “he would come, too, and there are very few of us left, Eldress.
+He would be a great gain.”
+
+There was a long silence. Brother William’s gray head sagged on his
+shoulder, and the hymn-book slipped from his gnarled old hands. The
+knitting sisters began, one after another, to stab their needles into
+their balls of gray yarn and roll their work up in their aprons.
+
+“It’s getting late, Eldress,” one of them said, and glanced at the
+clock.
+
+“Then I’ll tell her she may come?” said Eldress Hannah, reluctantly.
+
+“He can make the wrath of man to praise Him,” Brother Nathan encouraged
+her.
+
+“Yee; but I never heard that He could make the foolishness of woman do
+it,” the old woman said, grimly.
+
+As the brothers and sisters parted at the door of the sitting-room
+Brother Nathan plucked at the Eldress’s sleeve; “Is she very
+wretched--Lydia? Where is she now, Eldress? Poor Lydy! poor little
+Lydy!”
+
+
+The fortnight of Athalia’s absence wore greatly upon her husband.
+Apprehension lurked in the back of his mind. In the mill, or out on the
+farm, or when he sat down among his shabby, old, calf-skin books, he was
+assailed by the memory of all her various fancies during their married
+life. Some of them were no more remarkable or unexpected than this
+interest in Shakerism. He began to be slowly frightened. Suppose she
+should take it into her head--?
+
+When her fortnight was nearly up and he was already deciding whether,
+when he drove over to Depot Corners to meet her, he would take Ginny’s
+colt or the new mare, a letter came to say she was going to stay a week
+longer.
+
+“I believe,” she wrote--her very pen, in the frantic down-hill slope of
+her lines, betraying the excitement of her thoughts--“I believe that for
+the first time in my life I have found my God!” The letter was full
+of dashes and underlining, and on the last page there was a blistered
+splash into which the ink had run a little on the edges.
+
+Lewis Hall’s heart contracted with an almost physical pang. “I must go
+and get her right off,” he said; “this thing is serious!” And yet, after
+a wakeful night, he decided, with the extraordinary respect for her
+individuality so characteristic of the man--a respect that may be called
+foolish or divine, as you happen to look at it--he decided not to go.
+If he dragged her away from the Shakers against her will, what would be
+gained? “I must give her her head, and let her see for herself that it’s
+all moonshine,” he told himself, painfully, over and over; “my seeing
+it won’t accomplish anything.” But he counted the hours until she would
+come home.
+
+When she came, as soon as he saw her walking along the platform looking
+for him while he stood with his hand on Ginny’s colt’s bridle, even
+before she had spoken a single word, even then he knew what had
+happened--the uplifted radiance of her face announced it.
+
+But she did not tell him at once. On the drive home, in the dark
+December afternoon, he was tense with apprehension; once or twice he
+ventured some questions about the Shakers, but she put them aside with a
+curious gentleness, her voice a little distant and monotonous; her words
+seemed to come only from the surface of her mind. When he lifted her out
+of the sleigh at their own door he felt a subtle resistance in her whole
+body; and when, in the hall, he put his arms about her and tried to kiss
+her, she drew back sharply and said:
+
+“No!--PLEASE!” Then, as they stood there in the chilly entry, she burst
+into a passionate explanation: she had been convicted and converted! She
+had found her Saviour! She--
+
+“There, there, little Tay,” he broke in, sadly; “supper is ready, dear.”
+ He heard a smothered exclamation--that it was smothered showed how
+completely she was immersed in a new experience, one of the details of
+which was the practice of self-control.
+
+But, of course, that night they had it out.... When they came into the
+sitting-room after supper she flung the news into his pale face: _she
+wished to join the Shakers_. But she must have his consent, she added,
+impatiently, because otherwise the Shakers would not let her come.
+
+“That’s the only thing I don’t agree with them about,” she said,
+candidly; “I don’t think they ought to make anything so solemn
+contingent upon the ‘consent’ of any other human being. But, of course,
+Lewis, it’s only a form. I have left you in spirit, and that is what
+counts. So I told them I knew you would consent.”
+
+She looked at him with those blue, ecstatic eyes, so oblivious to
+his pain that for a moment a sort of impersonal amazement at such
+self-centredness held him silent. But after the first shock he spoke
+with a slow fluency that pierced Athalia’s egotism and stirred an
+answering astonishment in her. His weeks of vague misgiving, deepening
+into keen apprehension, had given him protests and arguments which,
+although they never convinced her, silenced her temporarily. She had
+never known her husband in this character. Of course, she had been
+prepared for objections and entreaties, but sound arguments and stern
+disapproval confused and annoyed her. She had supposed he would tell her
+she would break his heart; instead, he said, calmly, that she hadn’t the
+head for Shakerism.
+
+“You’ve got to be very reasonable, ‘Thalia, to stand a community life,
+or else you’ve got to be an awful fool. You are neither one nor the
+other.”
+
+“I believe their doctrines,” she declared, “and I would die for a
+religious belief. But I don’t suppose you ever felt that you could die
+for a thing!”
+
+“I think I have--after a fashion,” he said, mildly; “but dying for a
+thing is easy; it’s living for it that’s hard. You couldn’t keep it up,
+Athalia; you couldn’t live for it.”
+
+Well, of course, that night was only the beginning. The days and weeks
+that followed were full of argument, of entreaty, of determination.
+Perhaps if he had laughed at her.... But it is dangerous to laugh
+at unhumorous people, for if they get angry all is lost. So he never
+laughed, nor in all their talks did he ever reproach her for not
+loving him. Once only his plea was personal--and even then it was only
+indirectly so.
+
+“Athalia,” he said, “there’s only one kind of pain in this world that
+never gets cured. It’s the pain that comes when you remember that you’ve
+made somebody who loved you unhappy--not for a principle, but for your
+own pleasure. I know that pain, and I know how it lasts. Once I did
+something, just to please myself, that hurt mother’s feelings. I’d give
+my right hand if I hadn’t done it. It’s twenty-two years ago, and I
+wasn’t more than a boy, and she forgave me and forgot all about it. I
+have never forgotten it. I wish to God I could! ‘Thalia, I don’t want
+you to suffer that kind of pain.”
+
+She saw the implication rather than the warning, and she burst out,
+angrily, that she wasn’t doing this for “pleasure”; she was doing it for
+principle! It was for the salvation of her soul!
+
+“Athalia,” he said, solemnly, “the salvation of our souls depends on
+doing our duty.”
+
+“Ah!” she broke in, triumphantly, “out of your own lips:--isn’t it my
+duty to do what seems to me right?”
+
+He considered a minute. “Well, yes; I suppose the most valuable example
+any one can set is to do what he or she believes to be right. It may be
+wrong, but that is not the point. We must do what we conceive to be
+our duty. Only, we’ve got to be sure, Tay, in deciding upon duty, in
+deciding what is right,--we’ve got to be sure that self-interest is
+eliminated. I don’t believe anybody can decide absolutely on what is
+right without eliminating self.”
+
+She frowned at this impatiently; its perfect fairness meant nothing to
+her.
+
+“You promised to be my wife,” he went on with a curious sternness;
+“it is obviously ‘right,’ and so it is your first duty to keep your
+promise--at least, so long as my conduct does not absolve you from
+it.” Then he added, hastily, with careful justice: “Of course, I’m not
+talking about promises to love; they are nonsense. Nobody can promise to
+love. Promises to do our duty are all that count.”
+
+That was the only reproach he made--if it was a reproach--for his
+betrayed love. It was just as well. Discussion on this subject between
+husbands and wives is always futile. Nothing was ever accomplished by
+it; and yet, in spite of the verdict of time and experience that nothing
+is gained, over and over the jealous man, and still more frequently the
+jealous woman, protests against a lost love with a bitterness that
+kills pity and turns remorse into antagonism. But Lewis Hall made no
+reproaches. Perhaps Athalia missed them; perhaps, under her spiritual
+passion, she was piqued that earthly passion was so readily silenced.
+But, if she was, she did not know it. She was entirely sincere
+and intensely happy in a new experience. It was a long winter of
+argument;--and then suddenly, in early April, the break came....
+
+“I WILL go; I have a right to save my soul!”
+
+And he said, very simply, “Well, Athalia, then I’ll go, too.”
+
+“You? But you don’t believe--” And almost in the Bible words he answered
+her, “No; but where you go, I will go; where you live, I will live.” And
+then, a moment later, “I promised to cleave to you, little Tay.”
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE uprooting of their life took a surprisingly short time. In all those
+dark months of argument Lewis Hall had been quietly making plans for
+this final step, and such preparation betrayed his knowledge from the
+first of the hopelessness of his struggle--indeed, the struggle had only
+been loyalty to a lost cause. His calm assent to his wife’s ultimatum
+left her a little blank; but in the immediate excitement of removal, in
+the thrill of martyrdom that came with publicity, the blankness did not
+last. What the publicity was to her husband she could not understand.
+He received the protests of his family in stolid silence; when the
+venturesome great-aunt told him what she thought of him, he smiled;
+when his brother informed him that he was a fool, he said he shouldn’t
+wonder. When the minister, egged on by distracted Hall relatives,
+remonstrated, he replied, respectfully, that he was doing what he
+believed to be his duty, “and if it seems to be a duty, I can’t help
+myself; you see that, don’t you?” he said, anxiously. But that was
+practically all he found to say; for the most part he was silent.
+Athalia, in her absorption, probably had not the slightest idea of the
+agonies of mortification which he suffered; her imagination told her,
+truly enough, what angry relatives and pleasantly horrified neighbors
+said about her, and the abuse exhilarated her very much; but her
+imagination stopped there. It did not give her the family’s opinion of
+her husband; it did not whisper the gossip of the grocery-store and the
+post-office; it did not repeat the chuckles or echo the innuendoes:
+
+“So Squire Hall’s wife’s got tired of him? Rather live with the Shakers
+than him!” “I like Hall, but I haven’t any sympathy with him,” the
+doctor said; “what in thunder did he let her go gallivanting off to
+visit the Shakers for? Might have known a female like Mrs. Hall’d get a
+bee in her bonnet. He ought to have kept her at home. _I_ would have. I
+wouldn’t have had any such nonsense in my family! Well, for an obstinate
+man (and he IS obstinate, you know), the squire, when it comes to his
+wife, has no more backbone than a wet string.”
+
+“Wonder if there’s anything under it all?” came the sly insinuation of
+gossip; “wonder if she hasn’t got something besides the Shakers up her
+sleeve? You wait!”
+
+If Athalia’s imagination spared her these comments, Lewis’s
+unimaginative common sense supplied them. He knew what other men and
+husbands were saying about him; what servants and gossip and friends
+insinuated to one another, and set his jaw in silence. He made no excuse
+and no explanation. Why should he? The facts spoke. His wife did prefer
+the Shakers to her husband and her home. To have interfered with her
+purpose by any plea of his personal unhappiness, or by any threat of an
+appeal to law, or even by refusing to give the “consent” essential to
+her admission, would not have altered these facts. As for his reasons
+for going with her, they would not have enhanced his dignity in the eyes
+of the men who wouldn’t have had any such nonsense in their families: he
+must be near her to see that she did not suffer too much hardship, and
+to bring her home when she was ready to come.
+
+In those days of tearing his life up by the roots the silent man was
+just a little more silent, that was all. But the fact was burning into
+his consciousness: he couldn’t keep his wife! That was what they said,
+and that was the truth. It seemed to him as if his soul blushed at
+his helplessness. But his face was perfectly stolid. He told Athalia,
+passively, that he had rented the house and mill to Henry Davis; that he
+had settled half his capital upon her, so that she would have some money
+to put into the common treasury of the community; then he added that
+he had taken a house for himself near the settlement, and that he would
+hire out to the Shakers when they were haying, or do any farm-work that
+he could get.
+
+“I can take care of myself, I guess,” he said; “I used to camp out when
+I was a boy, and I can cook pretty well, mother always said.” He looked
+at her wistfully; but the uncomfortable-ness of such an arrangement
+did not strike her. In her desire for a new emotion, her eagerness to
+FEEL--that eagerness which is really a sensuality of the mind--she was
+too absorbed in her own self-chosen hardships to think of his; which
+were not entirely self-chosen.
+
+
+“I think I can find enough to do,” he said; “the Shakers need an
+able-bodied man; they only have those three old men.”
+
+“How do you know that?” she asked, quickly.
+
+“I’ve been to see them twice this winter,” he said.
+
+“Why!” she said, amazed, “you never told me!”
+
+“I don’t tell you everything nowadays, ‘Thalia,” he said, briefly.
+
+In those two visits to the Shakers, Lewis Hall had been treated with
+great delicacy; there had been no effort to proselytize, and equally
+there had been no triumphing over the accession of his wife; in fact,
+Athalia was hardly referred to, except when they told him that they
+would take good care of her, and when Brother Nathan volunteered a brief
+summary of Shaker doctrines--“so as you can feel easy about her,” he
+explained: “We believe that Christ was the male principle in Deity, and
+Mother Ann was the female principle. And we believe in confession of
+our sins, and communion with the dead--spiritualism, they call it
+nowadays--and in the virgin life. Shakers don’t marry, nor give in
+marriage. And we have all things in common. That’s all, friend. You see,
+we don’t teach anything that Christ didn’t teach, so she won’t learn any
+evil from us. Simple, ain’t it?”
+
+“Well, yes, after a fashion,” Lewis Hall said; “but it isn’t human.”
+
+And Brother Nathan smiled mystically. “Maybe that isn’t against it, in
+the long run,” he said.
+
+
+They came to the community in the spring twilight. The brothers and
+sisters had assembled to meet the convert, and to give a neighborly hand
+to the silent man who was to live by himself in a little, gray, shingled
+house down on Lonely Lake Road. It was a supreme moment to Athalia. She
+had expected an intense parting from her husband when they left their
+own house; and she was ready to press into her soul the poignant thorn
+of grief, not only because it would make her FEEL, but because it would
+emphasize in her own mind the divine self-sacrifice which she wanted to
+believe she was making. But when the moment came to close the door of
+the old home behind them, her husband was cruelly commonplace about
+it--for poor Lewis had no more drama in him than a kindly Newfoundland
+dog! He was full of practical cares for his tenant, and he stopped even
+while he was turning the key in the lock, to “fuss,” as Athalia said,
+over some last details of the transfer of the sawmill. Athalia could
+not tear herself from arms that placidly consented to her withdrawal; so
+there had been no rending ecstasies. In consequence, on the journey up
+to the community she was a little morose, a little irritable even, just
+as the drunkard is apt to be irritable when sobriety is unescapable....
+But at the door of the Family House she had her opportunity: she said,
+dramatically, “Good-night--_Brother Lewis_.” It was an entirely sincere
+moment. Dramatic natures are not often insincere, they are only unreal.
+
+As for her husband, he said, calmly, “Good-night, dear,” and trudged
+off in the cool May dusk down Lonely Lake Road. He found the door of
+the house on the latch, and a little fire glowing in the stove; Brother
+Nathan had seen to that, and had left some food on the table for him.
+But in spite of the old man’s friendly foresight the house had all the
+desolation of confusion; in the kitchen there were two or three cases of
+books, broken open but not unpacked, a trunk and a carpet-bag, and some
+bundles of groceries; they had been left by the expressman on tables and
+chairs and on the floor, so that the solitary man had to do some lifting
+and unpacking before he could sit down in his loneliness to eat the
+supper Brother Nathan had provided. He looked about to see where he
+would put up shelves for his books, and as he did so the remembrance of
+his quiet, shabby old study came to him, almost like a blow.
+
+“Well,” he said to himself, “this won’t be for so very long. We’ll be
+back again in a year, I guess. Poor little Tay! I shouldn’t wonder if it
+was six months. I wonder, can I buy Henry Davis off, if she wants to go
+back in six months?”
+
+And yet, in spite of his calm understanding of the situation, the wound
+burned. As he went about putting things into some semblance of order,
+he paused once and looked hard into the fire.... When she did want to go
+back--let it be in six months or six weeks or six days--would things be
+the same? Something had been done to the very structure and fabric of
+their life. “Can it ever be the same?” he said to himself; and then
+he passed his hand over his eyes, in a bewildered way--“Will I be the
+same?” he said.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+SUMMER at the Shaker settlement, lying in the green cup of the hills,
+was very beautiful. The yellow houses along the grassy street drowsed in
+the sunshine, and when the wind stirred the maple leaves one could
+see the distant sparkle of the lake. Athalia had a fancy, in the warm
+twilights, for walking down Lonely Lake Road, that jolted over logs and
+across gullies and stopped abruptly at the water’s edge. She had to pass
+Lewis’s house on the way, and if he saw her he would call out to her,
+cheerfully,
+
+“Hullo, ‘Thalia! how are you, dear?”
+
+And she, with prim intensity, would reply, “Good-evening, BROTHER
+Lewis.”
+
+If one of the sisters was with her, they would stop and speak to him;
+otherwise she passed him by in such an eager consciousness of her part
+that he smiled--and then sighed. When she had a companion, Lewis and the
+other Shakeress would gossip about the weather or the haying, and Lewis
+would have the chance to say: “You’re not overworking, ‘Thalia? You’re
+not tired?” While Athalia, in her net cap and her gray shoulder cape
+buttoned close up to her chin, would dismiss the anxious affection
+with a peremptory “Of course not! I have bread to eat you know not of,
+Brother Lewis.” Then she would add, didactically, some word of dogma or
+admonition.
+
+But she had not much time to give to Brother Lewis’s salvation--she was
+so busy in adjusting herself to her new life. Its picturesque details
+fascinated her--the cap, the brevity of speech, the small mannerisms,
+the occasional and very reserved mysticism, absorbed her so that she
+thought very little of her husband. She saw him occasionally on those
+walks down to the lake, or when, after a day in the fields with the
+three old Shaker men, Brother Nathan brought him home to supper.
+
+“We Shakers are given to hospitality,” he said; “we’re always looking
+for the angel we are going to entertain unawares. Come along home with
+us, Lewis.” And Lewis would plod up the hill and take his turn at the
+tin washbasin, and then file down the men’s side of the stairs to the
+dining-room, where he and the three old brothers sat at one table, and
+Athalia and the eight sisters sat at the other table. After supper he
+had the chance to see Athalia and to make sure that she was not looking
+tired. “You didn’t take cold yesterday, ‘Thalia? I saw you were out in
+the rain,” he would say. And she, always a little embarrassed at such
+personal interest, would reply, primly, “I am not at all tired, Brother
+Lewis.” Nathan used to walk home with his guest, and sometimes they
+talked of work that must be done, and sometimes touched on more
+unpractical things--those spiritual manifestations which at rare
+intervals centred in Brother William and were the hope of the whole
+community. For who could tell when the old man’s incoherent muttering
+would break into the clear speech of one of those Heavenly Visitants
+who, in the early days, had descended upon the Shakers, and then, for
+some divine and deeply mysterious reason, withdrawn from such pure
+channels of communication, and manifested themselves in the world,--but
+through base and sordid natures. Poor, vague Brother William, who saw
+visions and dreamed dreams, was, in this community, the torch that held
+a smouldering spark of the divine fire, and when, in a cataleptic
+state, his faint intelligence fluttered back into some dim depths of
+personality, and he moaned and muttered, using awful names with babbling
+freedom, Brother Nathan and the rest listened with pathetic eagerness
+for a _“thus saith the Lord,”_ which should enflame the gray embers of
+Shakerism and give light to the whole world! When Nathan talked of these
+things he would add, with a sigh, that he hoped some day William would
+be inspired to tell them something more of Sister Lydia: “Once William
+said, ‘Coming, coming.’ _I_ think it meant Lydia; but Eldress thought
+it was Athalia; it was just before she came.” Brother Nathan sighed. “I
+wish it had meant Lydy,” he said, simply.
+
+If Lewis wished it had meant Lydy, he did not say so. And, indeed,
+he said very little upon any subject; Brother Nathan did most of the
+talking.
+
+“I fled from the City of Destruction when I was thirty,” he told Lewis;
+“that was just a year before Sister Lydy left us. Poor Lydy! poor Lydy!”
+ he said. “Oh, yee, _I_ know the world. I know it, my boy! Do you?”
+
+“Why, after a fashion,” Lewis said; and then he asked, suddenly, “Why
+did you turn Shaker, Nathan?”
+
+“Well, I got hold of a Shaker book that set me thinking. Sister Lydia
+gave it to me. I met Sister Lydia when she had come down to the place I
+lived to sell baskets. And she was interested in my salvation, and
+gave me the book. Then I got to figuring out the Prophecies, and I saw
+Shakerism fulfilled them; and then I began to see that when you don’t
+own anything yourself you can’t worry about your property; well, that
+clinched me, I guess. Poor Sister Lydia, she didn’t abide in grace
+herself,” he ended, sadly.
+
+“I should have thought you would have been sorry then, that you--” Lewis
+began, but checked himself. “How about”--he said, and stopped to clear
+his voice, which broke huskily;--“how about love between man and woman?
+Husband and wife?”
+
+“Marriage is honorable,” Brother Nathan conceded; “Shakers don’t despise
+marriage. But they like to see folks grow out of it into something
+better, like--like your wife, maybe.”
+
+“Well, your doctrine would put an end to the world,” Lewis said,
+smiling.
+
+“I guess,” said Brother Nathan, dryly, “there ain’t any immediate danger
+of the world coming to an end.”
+
+“I’d like to see that book,” Lewis said, when they parted at the
+pasture-bars where a foot-path led down the hill to his own house.
+
+And that night Brother Nathan had an eager word for the family. “He’s
+asked for a book!” he said. The Eldress smiled doubtfully, but Athalia,
+with a rapturous upward look, said,
+
+“May the Lord guide him!” then added, practically, “It won’t amount to
+anything. He thinks Shakerism isn’t human.”
+
+“That’s not against it, that’s not against it!” Nathan declared,
+smiling; “I’ve told him so a dozen times!”
+
+But Athalia was so happy that first year, and so important, that she did
+not often concern herself with the welfare of the man who had been her
+husband. Instead--it was early in April--he concerned himself with hers;
+he tried, tentatively, to see if it wasn’t almost time for Athalia “to
+get through with it.” Of course, afterward, Sister Athalia realized,
+with chagrin, that this attempt was only a forerunner of the fever that
+was developing, which in a few days was to make him a very sick man.
+But for the moment his question seemed to her a temptation of the devil,
+and, of course, resisted temptation made her faith stronger than ever.
+
+It was a deliciously cold spring night; Lewis had drawn the table, with
+his books on it, close to the fire to try to keep warm, but he shivered,
+even while his shoulders scorched, and somehow he could not keep his
+mind on the black, rectangular characters of the Hebrew page before
+him. He had been interested in Brother Nathan’s explanation of Hosea’s
+forecasting of Shakerism, and he had admitted to himself that, if Nathan
+was correct, there would be something to be said for Shakerism. The
+idea made him vaguely uneasy, because, that “something” might be so
+conclusive, that--But he could not face such a possibility.
+
+He wanted to dig at the text, so that he might refute Nathan; but
+somehow that night he was too dull to refute anybody, and by-and-by he
+pushed the black-lettered page aside, and, crouching over the fire, held
+out his hands to the blaze. He thought, vaguely, of the big fireplace in
+the old study, and suddenly, in the chilly numbness of his mind, he saw
+it--with such distinctness that he was startled. Then, a moment later,
+it changed into the south chamber that had been his mother’s bedroom--he
+could even detect the faint scent of rose-geranium that always hung
+about her; he noticed that the green shutters on the west windows were
+bowed, and from between them a line of sunshine fell across the matting
+on the floor and touched the four-poster that had a chintz spread and
+valance. How well he knew the faded roses and the cockatoos on that old
+chintz! Over there by the window he had caught her crying that time he
+had hurt her feelings, “just for his own pleasure”; the old stab of this
+thought pierced through the feverish mists and touched the quick. He
+struggled numbly with the visualization of fever, brushing his hot hand
+across his eyes and trying to see which was real--the geranium-sweet
+south chamber or the chilly house on Lonely Lake Road. Athalia had given
+him pain in that same way--just for her own pleasure. Poor little Tay!
+He was afraid it would hurt her, some day, when she realized it; well,
+when she came to herself, when she got through her playing at Shakerism,
+he must not let her know how great the pain had been; she would suffer
+too much if she should understand his misery: and Athalia didn’t bear
+suffering well.... But how long she had been getting over Shakerism! He
+had thought it would only last six months, and here it was a year! Well,
+if Nathan’s reading of the Prophecies was right, then Athalia would
+never get over it. She ought never to get over it. Then what would
+become of the farm and the sawmill? And instantly everything was unreal
+again; he could hear the hum of the driving-wheel and the screech of the
+saw tearing through a log; how fragrant the fresh planks were, and the
+great heaps of sawdust--but the noise made his head ache; and--and the
+fire didn’t seem hot....
+
+It was in one of those moments when the mists thinned, and he knew that
+he was shivering over the stove instead of basking in the sunshine in
+his mother’s room that smelled of rose-geranium leaves, that Athalia
+came in. She looked conscious and confused, full of a delightful
+embarrassment at being for once alone with him. The color was deep on
+her cheeks, and her eyes were starry.
+
+“Eldress asked me to bring your mail down to you, Brother Lewis,” she
+said.
+
+“Thalia!” he said; “I am so glad to see you, dear; I--I seem to be
+rather used up, somehow.” The mists had quite cleared away, but
+a violent headache made his words stumble. “I was just wondering,
+Thalia--don’t you think you might go home now? You’ve had a whole year
+of it--and I really ought to go home--the mill--”
+
+“Why, Lewis Hall! What do you mean!” she said, forgetting her part in
+her indignation. “I am a Shakeress. You’ve no right to speak so to me.”
+
+He blinked at her through the blur of pain. “I wish you’d stay with
+me, Athalia, I’ve got a--a sort of--headache. Never mind about being a
+Shakeress just for to-night. It would be such a comfort to have you.”
+
+But Athalia, with a horrified look, had left him. She fled home in
+the darkness with burning cheeks; she debated with herself whether she
+should tell Eldress how her husband--no, Brother Lewis--had tried to
+“tempt” her back to him. In her excitement at this lure of the devil she
+even wondered whether Lewis had pretended that he was ill, to induce her
+to stay with him? But even Athalia’s imagination could not compass such
+a thought of Lewis for more than a moment, so she only told the Eldress
+that Brother Lewis had “tried to persuade her to go back to the world
+with him.” The Lord had defended her, she said, excitedly, and she had
+forbidden him to speak to her!
+
+Eldress Hannah looked perplexed. “That’s not like Lewis. I wonder--”
+ But she did not say what she wondered. Instead, she went early in the
+morning down Lonely Lake Road to Lewis’s house. The poor fellow was
+entirely in the mists by that time, shivering and burning and quite
+unconscious, saying over and over, “She wouldn’t stay; she wouldn’t
+stay.”
+
+“‘Lure her back,’” said Eldress Hannah, with a snort. “Poor boy! It’s
+good riddance for him.”
+
+But Eldress Hannah stayed, and Brother Nathan joined her, and for many
+days the little community was shaken with real anxiety, for they had all
+come to love the solitary, waiting husband. Athalia, abashed, but still
+cherishing the dear insult of having been tempted, took what little part
+Eldress allowed her in the care of the sick man; but in the six or seven
+weeks of his illness Brother Nathan and the Eldress were his devoted
+nurses, and by-and-by a genuine friendship grew up between them. Old
+Eldress Hannah’s shrewd good-humor was as wholesome as a sound winter
+apple, and Nathan had a gayety Lewis had never suspected. The old man
+grew very confidential in those days of Lewis’s convalescence; he showed
+his simple heart with a generosity that made the sick man’s lip tighten
+once or twice and his eyes blur;--Lewis came to know all about Sister
+Lydia; indeed, he knew more than the old man knew himself. When the
+invalid grew stronger, Nathan wrestled with him over the Prophecies, and
+Lewis studied them and the other foundation-stones of the Shaker faith
+with a constantly increasing anxiety. “Because,” he said, with a nervous
+blink, “if you ARE right--” But he left the sentence unfinished. Once
+he said, with a feeble passion--for he was still very weak--“I tell
+you, Nathan, it isn’t human!” and then added, under his breath, “but God
+knows whether that’s not in its fa-vor.”
+
+
+When he was quite well again he was plainly preoccupied. He pored
+over the Prophecies with a concentration that made him blind even to
+Athalia’s tired looks. Once, when some one said in his presence, “Sister
+‘Thalia is working too hard,” he blinked at her in an absent way before
+the old, anxious attention awoke in his eyes.
+
+Athalia tossed her head and said, “Brother Lewis has his own affairs to
+think of, I guess!”
+
+And he said, eagerly: “Yes, ‘Thalia; I have been thinking--Some day I’ll
+tell you. But not yet.”
+
+“Oh, I haven’t time to pry into other people’s thoughts,” she said,
+acidly. And, indeed, just then her time was very full. She was
+enormously useful to the community that second winter; her young power
+and strength shone out against the growing weariness of the old sisters.
+“Athalia’s capable,” Eldress Hannah said, and the other sisters said
+“Yee,” and smiled at one another.
+
+“She IS useful,” Sister Jane declared; “do you know, she got through the
+churning before nine? I’d ‘a’ been at it until eleven!”
+
+“Athalia is like one of those candles that have a streak of soft wax in
+‘em,” Eldress Hannah murmured; “but she’s useful, as you say, Jane.”
+
+In January, when the Eldress fell ill, Athalia was especially useful.
+She nursed her with a passion of faithfulness that made the other
+sisters remonstrate.
+
+“You’ll wear yourself out, Athalia; you haven’t had your clothes off for
+three days and nights!”
+
+“The Lord has upheld me, and His right hand has sustained me,” Athalia
+quoted, with an uplifted look.
+
+“Yee,” old Jane assented, “but He likes sense, Athalia, and there
+ain’t any reason why two of us shouldn’t take turns settin’ up with her
+tonight.”
+
+“This is my service,” Athalia said, smiling joyously.
+
+Eldress Hannah, lying with closed eyes, said, suddenly: “Athalia, don’t
+be foolish and conceited. You go right along to your bed; Jane and
+Mary’ll look after me.”
+
+It took Athalia a perceptible minute to get herself in hand sufficiently
+to say, meekly, “Yee, Eldress.” When she had shut the door behind her
+with perhaps something more than Shaker emphasis, the Eldress opened her
+eyes and smiled at old Jane. “She’s smart,” she said.
+
+“Yee,” said Sister Jane; and there was a little chuckle.
+
+The sick woman closed her eyes again and sighed. “What a nurse Lydia
+was!” she said; and added, suddenly: “How is Nathan getting along with
+Lewis? There isn’t much more time, I guess,” she ended, mildly; “she
+won’t last it out another summer.”
+
+“She’s done better than I expected to stay till now,” Jane said; and the
+Eldress nodded.
+
+But it was, perhaps, a natural result of Athalia’s abounding energy that
+toward the end of that second winter in the Shaker village she should
+grow irritable. The spring work was very heavy that year. Brother
+William was too feeble to do even the light, pottering tasks that had
+been allotted to him, and his vague babblings about the spirits ceased
+altogether. In April old Jane died, and that put extra burdens on
+Athalia’s capable shoulders. “But I notice I don’t get anything extra
+for my work, not even thanks!” she told Lewis, sharply, and forgot to
+call him “Brother.” She had walked down Lonely Lake Road and stopped at
+his gate. She looked thinner; her forget-me-not eyes were clouded,
+and there was an impatient line about her lips, instead of the faint,
+ecstatic smile which was part of her early experience.
+
+“Yes, there’s lots of work to be done,” he agreed, “but when people do
+it together--”
+
+“What do you think?”--she interrupted him, her lip drooping a little in
+a half-contemptuous smile--“they’ve heard again from that Sister Lydia
+who ran away! You know who I mean?--Brother Nathan is always talking
+about her. They think she’ll come back. _I_ should say good riddance!
+Though of course if it’s genuine repentance I’ll be glad. Only I don’t
+think it is.”
+
+“How pleased Nathan will be!” Lewis said.
+
+“Oh, he’s pleased; he’s rather too pleased for a Shaker, it strikes me.”
+
+Lewis frowned. “There is joy in the presence of the angels,” he reminded
+her, gravely.
+
+“Angels!” she said, with a laugh; “I don’t believe so much in the angels
+as I did before I knew so much about them. I understand that when
+this ‘angel’ comes back I am to give up my room to her, if you please,
+because it used to be hers. Oh, I’m of no importance now--Lewis,” she
+broke off, suddenly, “who has our house this year?”
+
+“Davis; he wants to re-lease it in May.”
+
+“He just takes it by the year, doesn’t he?” she asked.
+
+He nodded. “Wants a five-years’ lease next time.”
+
+“Well, don’t give it to him!” she said; and added, frowning: “You ought
+to go back yourself, you know. It’s foolish for you to be here. Why,
+it’s almost two years!”
+
+“Time flies,” he said, smiling.
+
+She laughed and sighed. “Yes--I mean yee--indeed, it does! I was just
+thinking, Lewis, we’ve been married ten years!”
+
+“No, eight years. We were married just eight years,” he said, soberly.
+
+The color flew into her face. “Oh, yee; we were married eight years when
+I came in.”
+
+He looked at her with great tenderness. “Athalia, I have to confess
+to you that when you came I didn’t think it would last with you. I
+distrusted the Holy Spirit. And I came, myself, against my will, as you
+know. But now I begin to think you were led--and perhaps you have led
+me.”
+
+Athalia gave a little gasp--“WHAT!”
+
+“I am not sure yet,” he said.
+
+“You said Shakerism was unhuman!” Athalia protested, with a thrill of
+panic in her voice.
+
+“Ah!” he cried, his voice suddenly kindling, “you know what Nathan is
+always saying?--‘That’s not against it’? Athalia, its unhumanness, as
+you call it, is why I think it may be of God. The human in us must give
+way to the divine. ‘First that which is natural; then that which is
+spiritual.’”
+
+“I--don’t understand,” she said, faintly; “you are not a Shaker?”
+
+“No,” he said, “not yet. But perhaps some day--I am trying to follow
+you, Athalia.”
+
+She caught her breath with a frightened look. “Follow--ME?” Then she
+burst out crying.
+
+“Why, Tay!” he said, bewildered; “what is it, dear?” But she had left
+him, stumbling blindly as she walked, her face hidden in her hands.
+
+Lewis went back into his house, and, lighting his lamp, sat down to pore
+over one of Brother Nathan’s books. He was concerned, but he smiled a
+little; it was so like Athalia to cry when she was happy! He did not see
+his wife for several days. The Eldress said Sister ‘Thalia was not well,
+and Lewis looked sorry, but made no comment. He was a little anxious,
+but he did not dwell upon his anxiety. In the next few days he worked
+hard all day in Brother Nathan’s herb-house, where the air was hazy with
+the aromatic dust of tansy and pennyroyal, then hurried home at night to
+sit down to his books, so profoundly absorbed in them that sometimes he
+only knew that it was time to sleep because the dawn fell white across
+the black-lettered page.
+
+But one night, a week later, when he came home from work, he did not
+open his Bible; he stood a long time in his doorway, looking at the
+sunset, and, as he looked, his face seemed to shine with some inner
+light. The lake was like glass; high in the upper heavens thin golden
+lines of cloud had turned to rippling copper; the sky behind the black
+circle of the hills was a clear, pale green, and in the growing dusk the
+water whitened like snow. “‘Glass mingled with fire,’” he murmured to
+himself; “yes, ‘great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty;
+just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of Saints!’” And what more
+marvellous work than this wonder of his own salvation? Brought here
+against his will, against his judgment! How he had struggled against the
+Spirit. He was humbled to the earth at the remembrance of it; “if I
+had my way, we wouldn’t have walked up the hill from the station that
+morning!”...
+
+The flushing heavens faded into ashes, but the solemn glow of
+half-astonished gratitude lingered on his face.
+
+“Lewis,” some one said in the darkness of the lane--“LEWIS!” Athalia
+came up the path swiftly and put her hands on his arm. “Lewis, I--I want
+to go home.” She sobbed as she spoke.
+
+He started as if she had struck him.
+
+“Lewis, Lewis, let us go home!”
+
+The flame of mystical satisfaction went out of his face as a lighted
+candle goes out in the wind.
+
+“There isn’t any home now, Athalia,” he said, with a sombre look;
+“there’s only a house. Come in,” he added, heavily; “we must talk this
+out.”
+
+She followed him, and for a moment they neither of them spoke; he
+fumbled about in the warm darkness for a match, and lifting the shade,
+lighted the lamp on the table; then he looked at her. “Athalia,” he
+said, in a terrified voice, “I am--_I am a Shaker!_”
+
+“No--no--no!” she said. She grew very white, and sat down, breathing
+quickly. Then the color came back faintly into her lips. “Don’t say it,
+Lewis; it isn’t true. It can’t be true!”
+
+“It is true,” he said, with a groan. He had sunk into a chair, and
+his face was hidden in his hands. “What are we going to do?” he said,
+hoarsely.
+
+“Why, you mustn’t be!” she cried; “you can’t be--that’s all. You can’t
+STAY if I go!”
+
+“I must stay,” he said.
+
+There was a stunned silence. Then she said, in an amazed whisper:
+
+“What! You don’t love me any more?”
+
+Still he was silent.
+
+“You--don’t--love--me,” she said, as if repeating some astounding fact,
+which she could not yet believe.
+
+He seemed to gather his courage up.
+
+“I have--” he tried to speak; faltered, broke, went on: “I have--the
+kindliest feelings toward you, ‘Thalia”--his last word was in a whisper.
+
+“Stop!” she protested, with a frightened look--“oh, stop!--don’t say
+THAT!” He did not speak; and suddenly, looking at his fixed face, she
+cried out, violently: “Oh, why, why did I go up to the graveyard that
+day? Why did you let me?” She stared at him, her forget-me-not eyes
+dilating with dismay. “It all came from that. If we hadn’t walked up the
+hill that morning--” He was speechless. Then, abruptly, she sprang to
+her feet, and, running to him, knelt beside him and tried to pull down
+the hands in which he had again hidden his face. “Lewis, it’s I--Tay!
+You don’t ‘feel kindly’ to ME? Lewis, you haven’t stopped loving me?”
+
+“I am a Shaker,” he said, helplessly. “I can’t give up my religion, even
+for you.”
+
+He got on his feet and stood before her, his empty palms hanging at his
+sides in that strange gesture of entire hopelessness; he tried to speak,
+but no words came. The lamp on the table flickered a little. Their
+shadows loomed gigantic on the wall behind them; the little hot room was
+very still.
+
+“You think you don’t love me?” Athalia said, between set teeth; “_I know
+better!_” With a laugh she caught his arm with both her shaking hands,
+and kissed him once, and then again. Still he was silent. Then with
+a cry she threw herself against his breast. “I love you,” she said,
+passionately, “and you love me! Nothing on earth will make me believe
+you don’t love me,”--and for one vital moment her lips burned against
+his.
+
+His arms did not close about her,--but his hands clinched slightly. Then
+he moved back a step or two, and she heard him sigh. “Don’t, sister,” he
+said, gently.
+
+She threw up her hands with a frantic gesture. “SISTER? My God!” she
+said; and left him.
+
+* * * * *
+
+
+There was no further struggle between them. A week later she went away.
+As he told her, “the house was there”--and to that she went until she
+should go to find some whirl of life that would make her deaf to voices
+of the past.
+
+As for Lewis, he did not see that miserable departure from the Family
+House in the shabby old carryall that had been the Shakers’ one
+vehicle for more than thirty years. He told Nathan he wanted to mow the
+burial-ground up on the hill that morning. From that high and silent
+spot he could see the long white road up from the settlement on one
+side and down to the covered bridge on the other side. He sat under the
+pine-tree, his scythe against the stone wall behind him, his clinched
+hands between his knees. Sitting thus, he watched the road and the
+slow crawl of the shaky old carriage. ... After it had passed the
+burying-ground and was out of sight, he hid his face in his bent elbow.
+
+
+It was some ten years afterward that word came to Eldress Hannah that
+Athalia Hall was dying and wanted to see her husband; would he come to
+her?
+
+“Will you go, Brother Lewis?” Eldress asked him, doubtfully.
+
+“Yee, if you think best,” he said.
+
+“I do think best,” the old woman said.
+
+He went, a bent, elderly man in a gray coat, threading his wavering way
+through the noisy buffet of the streets of the city where Athalia had
+elected to dwell. He found her in a gaudy hotel, full of the glare of
+pushing, hurrying life. He sat down at her bedside, a little breathless,
+and looked at her with mild, remote eyes.
+
+“Do you forgive me, Lewis?” she said.
+
+“I have nothing to forgive, sister,” he told her.
+
+“Don’t call me that!” she cried, with feeble passion.
+
+He looked a little bewildered. “Yee,” he said, “I forgive you.”
+
+“Oh, Lewis!--Lewis!--Lewis!” she mourned; “this is what I have done!”
+ She wept pitifully. His face grew vaguely troubled, as if he did not
+quite understand.... Then, abruptly, the veil lifted: his eyes dilated
+with pain; he passed his hand over his forehead once or twice and
+sighed. Then he looked down at the poor, dying face that once he had
+loved.
+
+“Why, ‘Thalia!” he said, in a surprised and anguished voice; suddenly
+he put his arm under the restless head. “There, there, little Tay; don’t
+cry,” he said, and smiled at her.
+
+And with that she was content to fall asleep.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Way to Peace, by Margaret Deland
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+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      The Way to Peace, by Margaret Deland
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Way to Peace, by Margaret Deland
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Way to Peace
+
+Author: Margaret Deland
+
+Release Date: January 10, 2009 [EBook #2685]
+Last Updated: November 4, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WAY TO PEACE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer, and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      THE WAY TO PEACE
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By Margaret Deland
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h4>
+      TO LORIN DELAND<br /> <br /> KENNEBUNKPORT, MAINE AUGUST 12TH, 1910
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      Contents
+    </h3>
+    <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> I </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> II </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> III </a>
+          </p>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      ATHALIA HALL stopped to get her breath and look back over the road
+      climbing steeply up from the covered bridge. It was a little after five,
+      and the delicate air of dawn was full of wood and pasture scents&mdash;the
+      sweetness of bay and the freshness of dew-drenched leaves. In the valley
+      night still hung like gauze under the trees, but the top of the hill was
+      glittering with sunshine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, we&rsquo;ve hardly come halfway!&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband, plodding along behind her, nodded ruefully. &ldquo;Hardly,&rdquo; he
+      said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In her slim prettiness Athalia Hall looked like a girl, but she was
+      thirty-four. Part of the girlishness lay in the smoothness of her white
+      forehead and in the sincere intensity of her gaze. She wore a blue linen
+      dress, and there was a little, soft, blue scarf under her chin; her white
+      hat, with pink roses and loops of gray-blue ribbon, shadowed eager,
+      unhumorous eyes, the color of forget-me-nots. Her husband was her senior
+      by several years&mdash;a large, loose-limbed man, with a scholarly face
+      and mild, calm eyes&mdash;eyes that were full of a singular tenacity of
+      purpose. Just now his face showed the fatigue of the long climb up-hill;
+      and when his wife, stopping to look back over the glistening tops of the
+      birches, said, &ldquo;I believe it&rsquo;s half a mile to the top yet!&rdquo; he agreed,
+      breathlessly. &ldquo;Hard work!&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be worth it when I get to the top and can see the view!&rdquo; she
+      declared, and began to climb again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All the same, this road will be mighty hot when the sun gets full on it,&rdquo;
+       her husband said; and added, anxiously, &ldquo;I wish I had made you rest in the
+      station until train-time.&rdquo; She flung out her hands with an exclamation:
+      &ldquo;Rest! I hate rest!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hold on, and I&rsquo;ll give you a stick,&rdquo; he called to her; &ldquo;it&rsquo;s a help when
+      you&rsquo;re climbing.&rdquo; He pulled down a slender birch, and, setting his foot on
+      it, broke it off at the root. She stopped, with an impatient gesture, and
+      waited while he tore off handfuls of leaves and whittled away the
+      side-shoots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do hurry, Lewis!&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had left their train at five o&rsquo;clock in the morning, and had been
+      sitting in the frowsy station, sleepily awaiting the express, when Athalia
+      had had this fancy for climbing the hill so that she might see the view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It looks pretty steep,&rdquo; her husband warned her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be something to do, anyhow!&rdquo; she said; and added, with a restless
+      sigh, &ldquo;but you don&rsquo;t understand that, I suppose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess I do&mdash;after a fashion,&rdquo; he said, smiling at her. It was only
+      in love&rsquo;s fashion, for really he was incapable of quite understanding her.
+      To the country lawyer of sober piety and granite sense of duty, the rich
+      variety of her moods was a continual wonder and sometimes a painful
+      bewilderment. But whether he understood the impetuous inconsequence of her
+      temperament &ldquo;after a fashion,&rdquo; or whether he failed entirely to follow the
+      complexity of her thought, he met all her fancies with a sort of tender
+      admiration. People said that Squire Hall was henpecked; they also said
+      that he had married beneath him. His father had been a judge and his
+      grandfather a minister; he himself was a graduate of a fresh-water
+      college, which later, when he published his exegesis on the Prophet
+      Daniel, had conferred its little degree upon him and felt that he was a
+      &ldquo;distinguished son.&rdquo; With such a lineage he might have done better, people
+      said, than to marry that girl, who was the most fickle creature and no
+      housekeeper, and whose people&mdash;this they told one another in reserved
+      voices&mdash;were PLAY-ACTORS! Athalia&rsquo;s mother, who had been the
+      &ldquo;play-actor,&rdquo; had left her children an example of duty&mdash;domestic as
+      well as professional duty&mdash;faithfully done. As she did not leave
+      anything else, Athalia added nothing to the Hall fortune; but Lewis&rsquo;s law
+      practice, which was hardly more than conveyancing now and then, was helped
+      out by a sawmill which the Halls had owned for two generations. So, as
+      things were, they were able to live in humdrum prosperity which gave Lewis
+      plenty of time to browse about among his grandfather&rsquo;s old theological
+      books, and by-and-by to become a very sound Hebrew scholar, and spared
+      Athalia much wholesome occupation which would have been steadying to her
+      eager nature. She was one of those people who express every passing
+      emotion, as a flower expresses each wind that sways it upon its stalk. But
+      with expression the emotion ended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But she isn&rsquo;t fickle,&rdquo; Lewis had defended her once to a privileged
+      relation who had made the accusation, basing it on the fact that Athalia
+      had sewed her fingers off for the Missionary Society one winter and done
+      nothing the next&mdash;&ldquo;Athalia ISN&rsquo;T fickle,&rdquo; Lewis explained; &ldquo;fickle
+      people are insincere. Athalia is perfectly sincere, but she is temporary;
+      that&rsquo;s all. Anyway, she wants to do something else this winter, and
+      &lsquo;Thalia must have her head.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your head&rsquo;s better than hers, young man,&rdquo; the venturesome relative
+      insisted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it must be her head and not mine, Aunty, when it comes to doing what
+      she thinks is right, even if it&rsquo;s wrong,&rdquo; he said, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, tell her she&rsquo;s a little fool!&rdquo; cried the old lady, viciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t do that with &lsquo;Thalia,&rdquo; Lewis explained, patiently, &ldquo;because it
+      would make her unhappy. She takes everything so dreadfully hard; she feels
+      things more than other people do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lewis,&rdquo; said the little, old, wrinkled, privileged great-aunt, &ldquo;think a
+      little less of her feelings and a little more of your own, or you&rsquo;ll make
+      a mess of things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lewis Hall was too respectful to tell the old lady what he thought of such
+      selfish advice; he merely did not act upon it. Instead, he went on giving
+      a great deal of thought to Athalia&rsquo;s &ldquo;feelings.&rdquo; That was why he and she
+      were climbing the hill in the dewy silence of this August morning. Athalia
+      had &ldquo;felt&rdquo; that she wanted to see the view&mdash;though it would have been
+      better for her to have rested in the station, Lewis thought;&mdash;(&ldquo;I
+      ought to have coaxed her out of it,&rdquo; he reproached himself.) It certainly
+      was a hard walk, considering that it followed a broken night in the
+      sleeping-car. They had left the train at five o&rsquo;clock in the morning, and
+      were sitting in the station awaiting the express when Athalia had had this
+      impulse to climb the hill. &ldquo;It looks pretty steep,&rdquo; Lewis objected; and
+      she flung out her hands with an impatient gesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I love to climb!&rdquo; she said. So here they were, almost at the top, panting
+      and toiling, Athalia&rsquo;s skirts wet with dew, and Lewis&rsquo;s face drawn with
+      fatigue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look!&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;it&rsquo;s all open! We can sit down and see all over the
+      world!&rdquo; She left the road, springing lightly through the fringing bay and
+      briers toward an open space on the hillside. &ldquo;There is a gate in the
+      wall!&rdquo; she called out; &ldquo;it seems to be some sort of enclosure. Lewis, help
+      me to open the gate! Hurry! What a queer place! What do you suppose it
+      is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The gate opened into a little field bounded by a stone wall; the grass had
+      been lately mowed, and the stubble, glistening with dew, showed the
+      curving swaths of the scythe; across it, in even lines from wall to wall,
+      were rows of small stakes painted black. Here and there were faint
+      depressions, low, green cradles in the grass; each depression was marked
+      at the head and foot by these iron stakes, hardly higher than the stubble
+      itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shakers&rsquo; graveyard, I guess,&rdquo; Lewis said; &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve heard that they don&rsquo;t use
+      gravestones. Peaceful place, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her vivid face was instantly grave. &ldquo;Very peaceful! Oh,&rdquo; she added, as
+      they sat down in the shadow of a pine, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t you sometimes want to lie
+      down and sleep&mdash;deep down in the grass and flowers?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he confessed, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe it would be as interesting as
+      walking round on top of them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him in despair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, now,&rdquo; he defended himself, &ldquo;you don&rsquo;t take much to peace yourself
+      at home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t understand!&rdquo; she said, passionately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, there, little Tay,&rdquo; he said, smiling, and putting a soothing hand
+      on hers; &ldquo;I guess I do&mdash;after a fashion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was very still; below them the valley had suddenly brimmed with
+      sunshine that flickered and twinkled on the birch leaves or shimmered on
+      sombre stretches of pine and spruce. Close at hand, pennyroyal grew thick
+      in the shadow of the wall; and just beyond, mullen candles cast slender
+      bars of shade across the grass. The sunken graves and the lines of iron
+      markers lay before them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How quiet it is!&rdquo; she said, in a whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess I&rsquo;ll smoke,&rdquo; Lewis said, and scratched a match on his trousers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How can you!&rdquo; she protested; &ldquo;it is profane!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He gave her an amused look, but lighted his cigar and smoked dreamily for
+      a minute; then he drew a long breath. &ldquo;I was pretty tired,&rdquo; he said, and
+      turned to glance back at the road. A horse and cart were coming in at the
+      open gate; the elderly driver, singing to himself, drew up abruptly at the
+      sight of the two under the pine-tree, then drove toward them, the wheels
+      of the cart jolting cheerfully over the cradling graves. He had a sickle
+      in his hand, and as he clambered down from the seat, he said, with
+      friendly curiosity:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You folks are out early, for the world&rsquo;s people.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is this a graveyard?&rdquo; Athalia demanded, impetuously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yee,&rdquo; he said, smiling; &ldquo;it&rsquo;s our burial-place; we&rsquo;re Shakers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why are there just the stakes&mdash;without names?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should there be names?&rdquo; he said, whimsically; &ldquo;they have new names
+      now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is your community? Can we go and visit it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yee; but we&rsquo;re not much to see,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;just men and women, like you.
+      Only we&rsquo;re happy. I guess that&rsquo;s all the difference.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what a difference!&rdquo; she exclaimed; and Lewis smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve come up for pennyroyal,&rdquo; the Shaker explained, sociably; &ldquo;it grows
+      thick round here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me about the Shakers,&rdquo; Athalia pleaded. &ldquo;What do you believe?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, a simple shrewdness glimmering in his brown eyes, &ldquo;if you
+      go to the Trustees&rsquo; House, down there in the valley, Eldress Hannah&rsquo;ll
+      tell you all about us. And the sisters have baskets and pretty truck to
+      sell&mdash;things the world&rsquo;s people like. Go and ask the Eldress what we
+      believe, and she&rsquo;ll show you the baskets.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned eagerly to her husband. &ldquo;Never mind the ten-o&rsquo;clock train,
+      Lewis. Let us go!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We could take a later train, all right,&rdquo; he admitted, &ldquo;but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, PLEASE!&rdquo; she entreated, joyously. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll help you pick pennyroyal,&rdquo;
+       she added to the Shaker.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this he would not allow. &ldquo;I doubt you&rsquo;d be careful enough,&rdquo; he said,
+      mildly; &ldquo;Sister Lydia was the only female I ever knew who could pick
+      herbs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you get paid for the work you do?&rdquo; Athalia asked, practically. Lewis
+      flushed at the boldness of such a question, but the old man chuckled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Should I pay myself?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You own everything in common, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; Lewis said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yee,&rdquo; said the Shaker; &ldquo;we&rsquo;re all brothers and sisters. Nobody tries to
+      get ahead of anybody else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you don&rsquo;t believe in marriage?&rdquo; Athalia asserted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are as the angels of God,&rdquo; he said, simply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He left them and began to sickle his herbs, with the cheerfully obvious
+      purpose of escaping further interruption.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Athalia instantly bubbled over with questions, but Lewis could tell her
+      hardly more of the Shakers than she knew already.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it isn&rsquo;t free love,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;they&rsquo;re decent enough. They believe in
+      general love, not particular, I suppose.... &lsquo;Thalia, do you think it&rsquo;s
+      worth while to wait over a train just to see the settlement?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course it is! He said they were happy; I would like to see what kind
+      of life makes people happy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at the lighted end of his cigar and smiled, but he said nothing.
+      Afterward, as they followed the cart across the field and out into the
+      road, Athalia asked the old herb-gatherer many questions about the
+      happiness of the community life, which he answered patiently enough. Once
+      or twice he tried to draw into their talk the silent husband who walked at
+      her side, but Lewis had nothing to say. Only when some reference was made
+      to one of the Prophecies did he look up in sudden interest. &ldquo;You take that
+      to mean the Judgment, do you?&rdquo; he said. And for the rest of the walk to
+      the settlement the two men discussed the point, the Shaker walking with
+      one hand on the heavy shaft, for the support it gave him, and Lewis
+      keeping step with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the foot of the hill the road widened into a grassy street, on both
+      sides of which, under the elms and maples, were the community houses, big
+      and substantial, but gauntly plain; their yellow paint, flaking and
+      peeling here and there, shone clean and fresh in the sparkle of morning.
+      Except for a black cat whose fur glistened like jet, dozing on a white
+      doorstep, the settlement, steeped in sunshine, showed no sign of life.
+      There was a strange remoteness from time about the place; a sort of
+      emptiness, and a silence that silenced even Athalia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where IS everybody?&rdquo; she said, in a lowered voice; as she spoke, a child
+      in a blue apron came from an open doorway and tugged a basket across the
+      street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are there children here?&rdquo; Lewis asked, surprised; and their guide said,
+      sadly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not as many as there ought to be. The new school laws have made a great
+      difference. We&rsquo;ve only got two. Folks used to send &lsquo;em to us to bring up;
+      oftentimes they stayed on after they were of age. Sister Lydia came that
+      way. Well, well, she tired of us, Lydy did, poor girl! She went back into
+      the world twenty years ago, now. And Sister Jane, she was a bound-out
+      child, too,&rdquo; he rambled on; &ldquo;she came here when she was six; she&rsquo;s seventy
+      now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What!&rdquo; Lewis exclaimed; &ldquo;has she never known anything but&mdash;this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His shocked tone did not disturb the old man. &ldquo;Want to see my herb-house?&rdquo;
+       he said. &ldquo;Guess you&rsquo;ll find some of the sisters in the sorting-room. I&rsquo;m
+      Nathan Dale,&rdquo; he added, courteously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had come to the open door of a great, weather-beaten building, from
+      whose open windows an aromatic breath wandered out into the summer air. As
+      they crossed the worn threshold, Athalia stopped and caught her breath in
+      the overpowering scent of drying herbs; then they followed Brother Nathan
+      up a shaky flight of steps to the loft. Here some elderly women, sitting
+      on low benches, were sorting over great piles of herbs in silence&mdash;the
+      silence, apparently, of peace and meditation. Two of them were dressed
+      like world&rsquo;s people, but the others wore small gray shoulder-capes
+      buttoned to their chins, and little caps of white net stretched smoothly
+      over wire frames; the narrow shirrings inside the frames fitted so close
+      to their peaceful, wrinkled foreheads that no hair could be seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish I could sit and sort herbs!&rdquo; Athalia said, under her breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Brother Nathan chuckled. &ldquo;For how long?&rdquo; he asked; and then introduced her
+      to the three workers, who greeted her calmly and went on sorting their
+      herbs. The loft was dark and cool; the window-frames, in which there were
+      no sashes, opened wide on the still August fields and woods; the
+      occasional brief words of the sorting-women seemed to drop into a pool of
+      fragrant silence. The two visitors followed Brother Nathan down the room
+      between piles of sorted herbs, and out into the sunshine again. Athalia
+      drew a breath of ecstasy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all so beautifully tranquil!&rdquo; she whispered, looking about her with
+      blue, excited eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tay and tranquillity!&rdquo; Lewis said, with an amused laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as they went along the grassy street this sense of tranquillity closed
+      about them like a palpable peace. Now and then they stopped and spoke to
+      some one&mdash;always an elderly person; and in each old face the
+      experiences that life writes in unerasable lines about eyes and lips were
+      hidden by a veil of calmness that was curiously unhuman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t canny, exactly,&rdquo; Lewis told his wife, in a low voice. But she
+      did not seem to hear him. She asked many questions of Eldress Hannah, who
+      had taken them in charge, and once or twice she burst into impetuous
+      appreciation of the idea of brotherhood, and even of certain theological
+      principles&mdash;which last diverted her husband very much. Eldress Hannah
+      showed them the dairy, and the work-room, and all there was to see, with a
+      patient hospitality that kept them at an infinite distance. She answered
+      Lewis&rsquo;s questions about the community with a sad directness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yee; there are not many of us now. The world&rsquo;s people say we&rsquo;re dying
+      out. But the Lord will preserve the remnant to redeem the world, young
+      man. Yee; when they come in from the world they cast their possessions
+      into the whole; we own nothing, for ourselves. Nay; we don&rsquo;t have many
+      come. Brother William was the last. Why did he come?&rdquo; She looked coldly at
+      Athalia, who had asked the question. &ldquo;Because he saw the way to peace.
+      He&rsquo;d had strife enough in the world. Yee,&rdquo; she admitted, briefly, &ldquo;some
+      fall from grace, and leave us. The last was Lydia. She was one of our
+      children, and I thought she was of the chosen. But she was only thirty
+      when she fell away, and you can&rsquo;t expect wisdom at that age. That was
+      nearly twenty years ago. When she has tasted the dregs of the world she
+      will come back to us&mdash;if she lives,&rdquo; Eldress Hannah ended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Athalia listened breathlessly, her rapt, unhumorous eyes fixed on Eldress
+      Hannah&rsquo;s still face. Now and then she asked a question, and once cried out
+      that, after all, why wasn&rsquo;t it the way to live? Peace and self-sacrifice
+      and love! &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; she said, turning to her husband, &ldquo;can&rsquo;t you feel the
+      attraction of it? I should think even you could feel it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I feel it&mdash;after a fashion,&rdquo; he said, mildly; &ldquo;I think I
+      have always felt the attraction of community life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Afterward, when they had left all this somnolent peace and begun the long
+      walk back to the station, he explained what he meant: &ldquo;I couldn&rsquo;t say so
+      before the Eldress, but of course there are times when anybody can feel
+      the charm of getting rid of personal responsibility&mdash;and that is what
+      community life really means. It&rsquo;s the relief of being a little cog in a
+      big machine; in fact, the very attraction of it is a sort of temptation,
+      to my way of looking at it. But it&mdash;well, it made me sleepy,&rdquo; he
+      confessed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For once his wife had no reply. She was very quiet on that return journey
+      in the cars, and in the days that followed she kept referring to their
+      visit with a persistence that surprised her husband. She thought the net
+      caps were beautiful; she thought the exquisite cleanness of everything was
+      like a perfume&mdash;&ldquo;the perfume of a wild rose!&rdquo; she said, ecstatically.
+      She thought the having everything in common was the way to live. &ldquo;And just
+      think how peaceful it is!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, yes,&rdquo; Lewis said; &ldquo;I suppose it&rsquo;s peaceful&mdash;after a fashion.
+      Anything that isn&rsquo;t alive is peaceful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But their idea of brotherhood is the highest kind of life!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The only fault I have to find with it is that it isn&rsquo;t human,&rdquo; he said,
+      mildly. He had no desire to prove or disprove anything; Athalia was
+      looking better, just because she was interested in something, and that was
+      enough for Lewis. When she proposed to read a book on Shakerism aloud, he
+      fell into her mood with what was, for him, enthusiasm; he declared he
+      would like nothing better, and he put his daily paper aside without a
+      visible regret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he admitted, &ldquo;I must say there&rsquo;s more to it than I supposed.
+      They&rsquo;ve studied the Prophecies; that&rsquo;s evident. And they&rsquo;re not narrow in
+      their belief. They&rsquo;re really Unitarians.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Narrow?&rdquo; she said&mdash;&ldquo;they are as wide as heaven itself! And, oh, the
+      peace of it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But they are NOT human,&rdquo; he would insist, smiling; &ldquo;no marriage&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+      not human, little Tay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not until two months later that he began to feel vaguely uneasy.
+      &ldquo;Yes; it&rsquo;s interesting,&rdquo; he admitted; &ldquo;but nobody in these days would want
+      to be a Shaker.&rdquo; To which she replied, boldly, &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was all, but it was enough. Lewis Hall&rsquo;s face suddenly sobered. He
+      had not stumbled along behind her in all her emotional experiences without
+      learning to read the guide-posts to her thought. &ldquo;I hope she&rsquo;ll get
+      through with it soon,&rdquo; he said to himself, with a worried frown; &ldquo;it isn&rsquo;t
+      wholesome for a mind like &lsquo;Thalia&rsquo;s to dwell on this kind of thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in November that she broke to him that she had written Eldress
+      Hannah to ask if she might come and visit the community, and had been
+      answered &ldquo;Yee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lewis was silent with consternation; he went out to the sawmill and
+      climbed up into the loft to think it all out alone. Should he forbid it?
+      He knew that was nonsense; in the first place, his conception of the
+      relation of husband and wife did not include that kind of thing; but more
+      than that, opposition would, he said to himself, &ldquo;push her in.&rdquo; Not into
+      Shakerism; &ldquo;&lsquo;Thalia couldn&rsquo;t be a Shaker to save her life,&rdquo; he thought,
+      with an involuntary smile; but into an excited discontent with her
+      comfortable, prosaic life. No; definite opposition to the visit must not
+      be thought of&mdash;but he must try and persuade her not to go. How? What
+      plea could he offer? His own loneliness without her he could not bring
+      himself to speak of; he shrank from taking what seemed to him an
+      advantage. He might urge that she would find it cold and uncomfortable in
+      those old frame houses high up on the hills; or that it would be bad for
+      her health to take the rather wearing journey at this time of year. But he
+      knew too well how little effect any such prudent counsels would have. The
+      very fact that her interest had lasted for more than three months showed
+      that it had really struck roots into her mind, and mere prudence would not
+      avail much. Still, he would urge prudence; then, if she was determined,
+      she must go. &ldquo;She&rsquo;ll get sick of it in a fortnight,&rdquo; he said; but for the
+      present he must let her have her head, even if she was making a mistake.
+      She had a right to have her head, he reminded himself&mdash;&ldquo;but I must
+      tell those people to keep her warm, she takes cold so easily.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He got up and looked out of the window; below, in the race, there was a
+      jam of logs, and the air was keen with the pungent smell of sawdust and
+      new boards. The whir and thud of the machinery down-stairs sent a faint
+      quiver through the planks under his feet. &ldquo;The mill will net a good profit
+      this year,&rdquo; he said to himself, absently. &ldquo;&lsquo;Thalia can have pretty nearly
+      anything she wants.&rdquo; And even as he said it he had a sudden, vague
+      misgiving: if she didn&rsquo;t have everything she wanted, perhaps she would be
+      happier? But the idea was too new and too subtle to follow up, so the
+      result of that troubled hour in the mill-chamber was only that he made no
+      very resolute objection to Athalia&rsquo;s acceptance of Eldress Hannah&rsquo;s
+      permission to come. It had been given grudgingly enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The family were gathered in the sitting-room; they had had their supper&mdash;the
+      eight elderly women and the three elderly men, all that were left of the
+      community. The room had the austere and shining cleanness which Athalia
+      had called a perfume, but it was full of homely comfort. A blue-and-white
+      rag carpet in the centre left a border of bare floor, painted
+      pumpkin-yellow; there was a glittering airtight stove with isinglass
+      windows that shone like square, red eyes; a gay patchwork cushion in the
+      seat of a rocking-chair was given up to the black cat, whose sleek fur
+      glistened in the lamplight. Three of the sisters knitted silently; two
+      others rocked back and forth, their tired, idle hands in their laps, their
+      eyes closed; the other three yawned, and spoke occasionally between
+      themselves of their various tasks. Brother Nathan read his weekly FARMER;
+      Brother William turned over the leaves of a hymn-book and appeared to
+      count them with noiseless, moving lips; Brother George cut pictures out of
+      the back of a magazine, yawning sometimes, and looking often at his watch.
+      Into this quietness Eldress Hannah&rsquo;s still voice came:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have heard from Lydia again.&rdquo; There was a faint stir, but no one spoke.
+      &ldquo;The Lord is dealing with her,&rdquo; Eldress Hannah said; &ldquo;she is in great
+      misery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Brother George nodded. &ldquo;That is good; He works in a mysterious way&mdash;she&rsquo;s
+      real miserable, is she? Well, well; that&rsquo;s good. The mercies of the Lord
+      are everlasting,&rdquo; he ended, in a satisfied voice, and began to read again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Amen!&mdash;amen!&rdquo; said Brother William, vaguely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor Lydy!&rdquo; Brother Nathan murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I had another letter,&rdquo; the Eldress proceeded, &ldquo;from that young woman
+      who came here in August&mdash;Athalia Hall; do you remember?&mdash;she
+      asked two questions to the minute! She wants to visit us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Brother Nathan looked at her over his spectacles, and one of the sisters
+      opened her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see why she should,&rdquo; Eldress Hannah added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two of the old brothers nodded agreement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The curiosity of the world&rsquo;s people does not help their souls,&rdquo; said one
+      of the knitters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She thinks we walk in the Way to Peace,&rdquo; said the Eldress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yee; we do,&rdquo; said Brother George.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I tell her &lsquo;nay&rsquo;?&rdquo; the Eldress questioned, calmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yee,&rdquo; said Brother George; and the dozing sisters murmured &ldquo;Yee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait,&rdquo; said Brother Nathan; &ldquo;her husband&mdash;HE has something to him.
+      Let her come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if she visited us, how would that affect him?&rdquo; Eldress Hannah asked,
+      surprised into faint animation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If she was moved to stay it would affect him,&rdquo; Brother Nathan said,
+      dryly; &ldquo;he would come, too, and there are very few of us left, Eldress. He
+      would be a great gain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a long silence. Brother William&rsquo;s gray head sagged on his
+      shoulder, and the hymn-book slipped from his gnarled old hands. The
+      knitting sisters began, one after another, to stab their needles into
+      their balls of gray yarn and roll their work up in their aprons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s getting late, Eldress,&rdquo; one of them said, and glanced at the clock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I&rsquo;ll tell her she may come?&rdquo; said Eldress Hannah, reluctantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He can make the wrath of man to praise Him,&rdquo; Brother Nathan encouraged
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yee; but I never heard that He could make the foolishness of woman do
+      it,&rdquo; the old woman said, grimly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the brothers and sisters parted at the door of the sitting-room Brother
+      Nathan plucked at the Eldress&rsquo;s sleeve; &ldquo;Is she very wretched&mdash;Lydia?
+      Where is she now, Eldress? Poor Lydy! poor little Lydy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The fortnight of Athalia&rsquo;s absence wore greatly upon her husband.
+      Apprehension lurked in the back of his mind. In the mill, or out on the
+      farm, or when he sat down among his shabby, old, calf-skin books, he was
+      assailed by the memory of all her various fancies during their married
+      life. Some of them were no more remarkable or unexpected than this
+      interest in Shakerism. He began to be slowly frightened. Suppose she
+      should take it into her head&mdash;?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When her fortnight was nearly up and he was already deciding whether, when
+      he drove over to Depot Corners to meet her, he would take Ginny&rsquo;s colt or
+      the new mare, a letter came to say she was going to stay a week longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe,&rdquo; she wrote&mdash;her very pen, in the frantic down-hill slope
+      of her lines, betraying the excitement of her thoughts&mdash;&ldquo;I believe
+      that for the first time in my life I have found my God!&rdquo; The letter was
+      full of dashes and underlining, and on the last page there was a blistered
+      splash into which the ink had run a little on the edges.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lewis Hall&rsquo;s heart contracted with an almost physical pang. &ldquo;I must go and
+      get her right off,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;this thing is serious!&rdquo; And yet, after a
+      wakeful night, he decided, with the extraordinary respect for her
+      individuality so characteristic of the man&mdash;a respect that may be
+      called foolish or divine, as you happen to look at it&mdash;he decided not
+      to go. If he dragged her away from the Shakers against her will, what
+      would be gained? &ldquo;I must give her her head, and let her see for herself
+      that it&rsquo;s all moonshine,&rdquo; he told himself, painfully, over and over; &ldquo;my
+      seeing it won&rsquo;t accomplish anything.&rdquo; But he counted the hours until she
+      would come home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she came, as soon as he saw her walking along the platform looking
+      for him while he stood with his hand on Ginny&rsquo;s colt&rsquo;s bridle, even before
+      she had spoken a single word, even then he knew what had happened&mdash;the
+      uplifted radiance of her face announced it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she did not tell him at once. On the drive home, in the dark December
+      afternoon, he was tense with apprehension; once or twice he ventured some
+      questions about the Shakers, but she put them aside with a curious
+      gentleness, her voice a little distant and monotonous; her words seemed to
+      come only from the surface of her mind. When he lifted her out of the
+      sleigh at their own door he felt a subtle resistance in her whole body;
+      and when, in the hall, he put his arms about her and tried to kiss her,
+      she drew back sharply and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No!&mdash;PLEASE!&rdquo; Then, as they stood there in the chilly entry, she
+      burst into a passionate explanation: she had been convicted and converted!
+      She had found her Saviour! She&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, there, little Tay,&rdquo; he broke in, sadly; &ldquo;supper is ready, dear.&rdquo;
+       He heard a smothered exclamation&mdash;that it was smothered showed how
+      completely she was immersed in a new experience, one of the details of
+      which was the practice of self-control.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, of course, that night they had it out.... When they came into the
+      sitting-room after supper she flung the news into his pale face: <i>she
+      wished to join the Shakers</i>. But she must have his consent, she added,
+      impatiently, because otherwise the Shakers would not let her come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the only thing I don&rsquo;t agree with them about,&rdquo; she said, candidly;
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think they ought to make anything so solemn contingent upon the
+      &lsquo;consent&rsquo; of any other human being. But, of course, Lewis, it&rsquo;s only a
+      form. I have left you in spirit, and that is what counts. So I told them I
+      knew you would consent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him with those blue, ecstatic eyes, so oblivious to his pain
+      that for a moment a sort of impersonal amazement at such self-centredness
+      held him silent. But after the first shock he spoke with a slow fluency
+      that pierced Athalia&rsquo;s egotism and stirred an answering astonishment in
+      her. His weeks of vague misgiving, deepening into keen apprehension, had
+      given him protests and arguments which, although they never convinced her,
+      silenced her temporarily. She had never known her husband in this
+      character. Of course, she had been prepared for objections and entreaties,
+      but sound arguments and stern disapproval confused and annoyed her. She
+      had supposed he would tell her she would break his heart; instead, he
+      said, calmly, that she hadn&rsquo;t the head for Shakerism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got to be very reasonable, &lsquo;Thalia, to stand a community life, or
+      else you&rsquo;ve got to be an awful fool. You are neither one nor the other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe their doctrines,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;and I would die for a
+      religious belief. But I don&rsquo;t suppose you ever felt that you could die for
+      a thing!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I have&mdash;after a fashion,&rdquo; he said, mildly; &ldquo;but dying for a
+      thing is easy; it&rsquo;s living for it that&rsquo;s hard. You couldn&rsquo;t keep it up,
+      Athalia; you couldn&rsquo;t live for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, of course, that night was only the beginning. The days and weeks
+      that followed were full of argument, of entreaty, of determination.
+      Perhaps if he had laughed at her.... But it is dangerous to laugh at
+      unhumorous people, for if they get angry all is lost. So he never laughed,
+      nor in all their talks did he ever reproach her for not loving him. Once
+      only his plea was personal&mdash;and even then it was only indirectly so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Athalia,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s only one kind of pain in this world that
+      never gets cured. It&rsquo;s the pain that comes when you remember that you&rsquo;ve
+      made somebody who loved you unhappy&mdash;not for a principle, but for
+      your own pleasure. I know that pain, and I know how it lasts. Once I did
+      something, just to please myself, that hurt mother&rsquo;s feelings. I&rsquo;d give my
+      right hand if I hadn&rsquo;t done it. It&rsquo;s twenty-two years ago, and I wasn&rsquo;t
+      more than a boy, and she forgave me and forgot all about it. I have never
+      forgotten it. I wish to God I could! &lsquo;Thalia, I don&rsquo;t want you to suffer
+      that kind of pain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She saw the implication rather than the warning, and she burst out,
+      angrily, that she wasn&rsquo;t doing this for &ldquo;pleasure&rdquo;; she was doing it for
+      principle! It was for the salvation of her soul!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Athalia,&rdquo; he said, solemnly, &ldquo;the salvation of our souls depends on doing
+      our duty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; she broke in, triumphantly, &ldquo;out of your own lips:&mdash;isn&rsquo;t it my
+      duty to do what seems to me right?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He considered a minute. &ldquo;Well, yes; I suppose the most valuable example
+      any one can set is to do what he or she believes to be right. It may be
+      wrong, but that is not the point. We must do what we conceive to be our
+      duty. Only, we&rsquo;ve got to be sure, Tay, in deciding upon duty, in deciding
+      what is right,&mdash;we&rsquo;ve got to be sure that self-interest is
+      eliminated. I don&rsquo;t believe anybody can decide absolutely on what is right
+      without eliminating self.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She frowned at this impatiently; its perfect fairness meant nothing to
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You promised to be my wife,&rdquo; he went on with a curious sternness; &ldquo;it is
+      obviously &lsquo;right,&rsquo; and so it is your first duty to keep your promise&mdash;at
+      least, so long as my conduct does not absolve you from it.&rdquo; Then he added,
+      hastily, with careful justice: &ldquo;Of course, I&rsquo;m not talking about promises
+      to love; they are nonsense. Nobody can promise to love. Promises to do our
+      duty are all that count.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was the only reproach he made&mdash;if it was a reproach&mdash;for
+      his betrayed love. It was just as well. Discussion on this subject between
+      husbands and wives is always futile. Nothing was ever accomplished by it;
+      and yet, in spite of the verdict of time and experience that nothing is
+      gained, over and over the jealous man, and still more frequently the
+      jealous woman, protests against a lost love with a bitterness that kills
+      pity and turns remorse into antagonism. But Lewis Hall made no reproaches.
+      Perhaps Athalia missed them; perhaps, under her spiritual passion, she was
+      piqued that earthly passion was so readily silenced. But, if she was, she
+      did not know it. She was entirely sincere and intensely happy in a new
+      experience. It was a long winter of argument;&mdash;and then suddenly, in
+      early April, the break came....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I WILL go; I have a right to save my soul!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he said, very simply, &ldquo;Well, Athalia, then I&rsquo;ll go, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You? But you don&rsquo;t believe&mdash;&rdquo; And almost in the Bible words he
+      answered her, &ldquo;No; but where you go, I will go; where you live, I will
+      live.&rdquo; And then, a moment later, &ldquo;I promised to cleave to you, little
+      Tay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      II
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      THE uprooting of their life took a surprisingly short time. In all those
+      dark months of argument Lewis Hall had been quietly making plans for this
+      final step, and such preparation betrayed his knowledge from the first of
+      the hopelessness of his struggle&mdash;indeed, the struggle had only been
+      loyalty to a lost cause. His calm assent to his wife&rsquo;s ultimatum left her
+      a little blank; but in the immediate excitement of removal, in the thrill
+      of martyrdom that came with publicity, the blankness did not last. What
+      the publicity was to her husband she could not understand. He received the
+      protests of his family in stolid silence; when the venturesome great-aunt
+      told him what she thought of him, he smiled; when his brother informed him
+      that he was a fool, he said he shouldn&rsquo;t wonder. When the minister, egged
+      on by distracted Hall relatives, remonstrated, he replied, respectfully,
+      that he was doing what he believed to be his duty, &ldquo;and if it seems to be
+      a duty, I can&rsquo;t help myself; you see that, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; he said, anxiously.
+      But that was practically all he found to say; for the most part he was
+      silent. Athalia, in her absorption, probably had not the slightest idea of
+      the agonies of mortification which he suffered; her imagination told her,
+      truly enough, what angry relatives and pleasantly horrified neighbors said
+      about her, and the abuse exhilarated her very much; but her imagination
+      stopped there. It did not give her the family&rsquo;s opinion of her husband; it
+      did not whisper the gossip of the grocery-store and the post-office; it
+      did not repeat the chuckles or echo the innuendoes:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So Squire Hall&rsquo;s wife&rsquo;s got tired of him? Rather live with the Shakers
+      than him!&rdquo; &ldquo;I like Hall, but I haven&rsquo;t any sympathy with him,&rdquo; the doctor
+      said; &ldquo;what in thunder did he let her go gallivanting off to visit the
+      Shakers for? Might have known a female like Mrs. Hall&rsquo;d get a bee in her
+      bonnet. He ought to have kept her at home. <i>I</i> would have. I wouldn&rsquo;t
+      have had any such nonsense in my family! Well, for an obstinate man (and
+      he IS obstinate, you know), the squire, when it comes to his wife, has no
+      more backbone than a wet string.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wonder if there&rsquo;s anything under it all?&rdquo; came the sly insinuation of
+      gossip; &ldquo;wonder if she hasn&rsquo;t got something besides the Shakers up her
+      sleeve? You wait!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      If Athalia&rsquo;s imagination spared her these comments, Lewis&rsquo;s unimaginative
+      common sense supplied them. He knew what other men and husbands were
+      saying about him; what servants and gossip and friends insinuated to one
+      another, and set his jaw in silence. He made no excuse and no explanation.
+      Why should he? The facts spoke. His wife did prefer the Shakers to her
+      husband and her home. To have interfered with her purpose by any plea of
+      his personal unhappiness, or by any threat of an appeal to law, or even by
+      refusing to give the &ldquo;consent&rdquo; essential to her admission, would not have
+      altered these facts. As for his reasons for going with her, they would not
+      have enhanced his dignity in the eyes of the men who wouldn&rsquo;t have had any
+      such nonsense in their families: he must be near her to see that she did
+      not suffer too much hardship, and to bring her home when she was ready to
+      come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In those days of tearing his life up by the roots the silent man was just
+      a little more silent, that was all. But the fact was burning into his
+      consciousness: he couldn&rsquo;t keep his wife! That was what they said, and
+      that was the truth. It seemed to him as if his soul blushed at his
+      helplessness. But his face was perfectly stolid. He told Athalia,
+      passively, that he had rented the house and mill to Henry Davis; that he
+      had settled half his capital upon her, so that she would have some money
+      to put into the common treasury of the community; then he added that he
+      had taken a house for himself near the settlement, and that he would hire
+      out to the Shakers when they were haying, or do any farm-work that he
+      could get.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can take care of myself, I guess,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;I used to camp out when I
+      was a boy, and I can cook pretty well, mother always said.&rdquo; He looked at
+      her wistfully; but the uncomfortable-ness of such an arrangement did not
+      strike her. In her desire for a new emotion, her eagerness to FEEL&mdash;that
+      eagerness which is really a sensuality of the mind&mdash;she was too
+      absorbed in her own self-chosen hardships to think of his; which were not
+      entirely self-chosen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I can find enough to do,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;the Shakers need an
+      able-bodied man; they only have those three old men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know that?&rdquo; she asked, quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been to see them twice this winter,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why!&rdquo; she said, amazed, &ldquo;you never told me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t tell you everything nowadays, &lsquo;Thalia,&rdquo; he said, briefly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In those two visits to the Shakers, Lewis Hall had been treated with great
+      delicacy; there had been no effort to proselytize, and equally there had
+      been no triumphing over the accession of his wife; in fact, Athalia was
+      hardly referred to, except when they told him that they would take good
+      care of her, and when Brother Nathan volunteered a brief summary of Shaker
+      doctrines&mdash;&ldquo;so as you can feel easy about her,&rdquo; he explained: &ldquo;We
+      believe that Christ was the male principle in Deity, and Mother Ann was
+      the female principle. And we believe in confession of our sins, and
+      communion with the dead&mdash;spiritualism, they call it nowadays&mdash;and
+      in the virgin life. Shakers don&rsquo;t marry, nor give in marriage. And we have
+      all things in common. That&rsquo;s all, friend. You see, we don&rsquo;t teach anything
+      that Christ didn&rsquo;t teach, so she won&rsquo;t learn any evil from us. Simple,
+      ain&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, yes, after a fashion,&rdquo; Lewis Hall said; &ldquo;but it isn&rsquo;t human.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Brother Nathan smiled mystically. &ldquo;Maybe that isn&rsquo;t against it, in the
+      long run,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They came to the community in the spring twilight. The brothers and
+      sisters had assembled to meet the convert, and to give a neighborly hand
+      to the silent man who was to live by himself in a little, gray, shingled
+      house down on Lonely Lake Road. It was a supreme moment to Athalia. She
+      had expected an intense parting from her husband when they left their own
+      house; and she was ready to press into her soul the poignant thorn of
+      grief, not only because it would make her FEEL, but because it would
+      emphasize in her own mind the divine self-sacrifice which she wanted to
+      believe she was making. But when the moment came to close the door of the
+      old home behind them, her husband was cruelly commonplace about it&mdash;for
+      poor Lewis had no more drama in him than a kindly Newfoundland dog! He was
+      full of practical cares for his tenant, and he stopped even while he was
+      turning the key in the lock, to &ldquo;fuss,&rdquo; as Athalia said, over some last
+      details of the transfer of the sawmill. Athalia could not tear herself
+      from arms that placidly consented to her withdrawal; so there had been no
+      rending ecstasies. In consequence, on the journey up to the community she
+      was a little morose, a little irritable even, just as the drunkard is apt
+      to be irritable when sobriety is unescapable.... But at the door of the
+      Family House she had her opportunity: she said, dramatically, &ldquo;Good-night&mdash;<i>Brother
+      Lewis</i>.&rdquo; It was an entirely sincere moment. Dramatic natures are not
+      often insincere, they are only unreal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for her husband, he said, calmly, &ldquo;Good-night, dear,&rdquo; and trudged off
+      in the cool May dusk down Lonely Lake Road. He found the door of the house
+      on the latch, and a little fire glowing in the stove; Brother Nathan had
+      seen to that, and had left some food on the table for him. But in spite of
+      the old man&rsquo;s friendly foresight the house had all the desolation of
+      confusion; in the kitchen there were two or three cases of books, broken
+      open but not unpacked, a trunk and a carpet-bag, and some bundles of
+      groceries; they had been left by the expressman on tables and chairs and
+      on the floor, so that the solitary man had to do some lifting and
+      unpacking before he could sit down in his loneliness to eat the supper
+      Brother Nathan had provided. He looked about to see where he would put up
+      shelves for his books, and as he did so the remembrance of his quiet,
+      shabby old study came to him, almost like a blow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said to himself, &ldquo;this won&rsquo;t be for so very long. We&rsquo;ll be back
+      again in a year, I guess. Poor little Tay! I shouldn&rsquo;t wonder if it was
+      six months. I wonder, can I buy Henry Davis off, if she wants to go back
+      in six months?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet, in spite of his calm understanding of the situation, the wound
+      burned. As he went about putting things into some semblance of order, he
+      paused once and looked hard into the fire.... When she did want to go back&mdash;let
+      it be in six months or six weeks or six days&mdash;would things be the
+      same? Something had been done to the very structure and fabric of their
+      life. &ldquo;Can it ever be the same?&rdquo; he said to himself; and then he passed
+      his hand over his eyes, in a bewildered way&mdash;&ldquo;Will I be the same?&rdquo; he
+      said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      III
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      SUMMER at the Shaker settlement, lying in the green cup of the hills, was
+      very beautiful. The yellow houses along the grassy street drowsed in the
+      sunshine, and when the wind stirred the maple leaves one could see the
+      distant sparkle of the lake. Athalia had a fancy, in the warm twilights,
+      for walking down Lonely Lake Road, that jolted over logs and across
+      gullies and stopped abruptly at the water&rsquo;s edge. She had to pass Lewis&rsquo;s
+      house on the way, and if he saw her he would call out to her, cheerfully,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hullo, &lsquo;Thalia! how are you, dear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she, with prim intensity, would reply, &ldquo;Good-evening, BROTHER Lewis.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      If one of the sisters was with her, they would stop and speak to him;
+      otherwise she passed him by in such an eager consciousness of her part
+      that he smiled&mdash;and then sighed. When she had a companion, Lewis and
+      the other Shakeress would gossip about the weather or the haying, and
+      Lewis would have the chance to say: &ldquo;You&rsquo;re not overworking, &lsquo;Thalia?
+      You&rsquo;re not tired?&rdquo; While Athalia, in her net cap and her gray shoulder
+      cape buttoned close up to her chin, would dismiss the anxious affection
+      with a peremptory &ldquo;Of course not! I have bread to eat you know not of,
+      Brother Lewis.&rdquo; Then she would add, didactically, some word of dogma or
+      admonition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she had not much time to give to Brother Lewis&rsquo;s salvation&mdash;she
+      was so busy in adjusting herself to her new life. Its picturesque details
+      fascinated her&mdash;the cap, the brevity of speech, the small mannerisms,
+      the occasional and very reserved mysticism, absorbed her so that she
+      thought very little of her husband. She saw him occasionally on those
+      walks down to the lake, or when, after a day in the fields with the three
+      old Shaker men, Brother Nathan brought him home to supper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We Shakers are given to hospitality,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;we&rsquo;re always looking for
+      the angel we are going to entertain unawares. Come along home with us,
+      Lewis.&rdquo; And Lewis would plod up the hill and take his turn at the tin
+      washbasin, and then file down the men&rsquo;s side of the stairs to the
+      dining-room, where he and the three old brothers sat at one table, and
+      Athalia and the eight sisters sat at the other table. After supper he had
+      the chance to see Athalia and to make sure that she was not looking tired.
+      &ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t take cold yesterday, &lsquo;Thalia? I saw you were out in the rain,&rdquo;
+       he would say. And she, always a little embarrassed at such personal
+      interest, would reply, primly, &ldquo;I am not at all tired, Brother Lewis.&rdquo;
+       Nathan used to walk home with his guest, and sometimes they talked of work
+      that must be done, and sometimes touched on more unpractical things&mdash;those
+      spiritual manifestations which at rare intervals centred in Brother
+      William and were the hope of the whole community. For who could tell when
+      the old man&rsquo;s incoherent muttering would break into the clear speech of
+      one of those Heavenly Visitants who, in the early days, had descended upon
+      the Shakers, and then, for some divine and deeply mysterious reason,
+      withdrawn from such pure channels of communication, and manifested
+      themselves in the world,&mdash;but through base and sordid natures. Poor,
+      vague Brother William, who saw visions and dreamed dreams, was, in this
+      community, the torch that held a smouldering spark of the divine fire, and
+      when, in a cataleptic state, his faint intelligence fluttered back into
+      some dim depths of personality, and he moaned and muttered, using awful
+      names with babbling freedom, Brother Nathan and the rest listened with
+      pathetic eagerness for a <i>&ldquo;thus saith the Lord,&rdquo;</i> which should
+      enflame the gray embers of Shakerism and give light to the whole world!
+      When Nathan talked of these things he would add, with a sigh, that he
+      hoped some day William would be inspired to tell them something more of
+      Sister Lydia: &ldquo;Once William said, &lsquo;Coming, coming.&rsquo; <i>I</i> think it
+      meant Lydia; but Eldress thought it was Athalia; it was just before she
+      came.&rdquo; Brother Nathan sighed. &ldquo;I wish it had meant Lydy,&rdquo; he said, simply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If Lewis wished it had meant Lydy, he did not say so. And, indeed, he said
+      very little upon any subject; Brother Nathan did most of the talking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fled from the City of Destruction when I was thirty,&rdquo; he told Lewis;
+      &ldquo;that was just a year before Sister Lydy left us. Poor Lydy! poor Lydy!&rdquo;
+       he said. &ldquo;Oh, yee, <i>I</i> know the world. I know it, my boy! Do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, after a fashion,&rdquo; Lewis said; and then he asked, suddenly, &ldquo;Why did
+      you turn Shaker, Nathan?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I got hold of a Shaker book that set me thinking. Sister Lydia gave
+      it to me. I met Sister Lydia when she had come down to the place I lived
+      to sell baskets. And she was interested in my salvation, and gave me the
+      book. Then I got to figuring out the Prophecies, and I saw Shakerism
+      fulfilled them; and then I began to see that when you don&rsquo;t own anything
+      yourself you can&rsquo;t worry about your property; well, that clinched me, I
+      guess. Poor Sister Lydia, she didn&rsquo;t abide in grace herself,&rdquo; he ended,
+      sadly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should have thought you would have been sorry then, that you&mdash;&rdquo;
+       Lewis began, but checked himself. &ldquo;How about&rdquo;&mdash;he said, and stopped
+      to clear his voice, which broke huskily;&mdash;&ldquo;how about love between man
+      and woman? Husband and wife?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Marriage is honorable,&rdquo; Brother Nathan conceded; &ldquo;Shakers don&rsquo;t despise
+      marriage. But they like to see folks grow out of it into something better,
+      like&mdash;like your wife, maybe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, your doctrine would put an end to the world,&rdquo; Lewis said, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess,&rdquo; said Brother Nathan, dryly, &ldquo;there ain&rsquo;t any immediate danger
+      of the world coming to an end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;d like to see that book,&rdquo; Lewis said, when they parted at the
+      pasture-bars where a foot-path led down the hill to his own house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And that night Brother Nathan had an eager word for the family. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s
+      asked for a book!&rdquo; he said. The Eldress smiled doubtfully, but Athalia,
+      with a rapturous upward look, said,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May the Lord guide him!&rdquo; then added, practically, &ldquo;It won&rsquo;t amount to
+      anything. He thinks Shakerism isn&rsquo;t human.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not against it, that&rsquo;s not against it!&rdquo; Nathan declared, smiling;
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve told him so a dozen times!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Athalia was so happy that first year, and so important, that she did
+      not often concern herself with the welfare of the man who had been her
+      husband. Instead&mdash;it was early in April&mdash;he concerned himself
+      with hers; he tried, tentatively, to see if it wasn&rsquo;t almost time for
+      Athalia &ldquo;to get through with it.&rdquo; Of course, afterward, Sister Athalia
+      realized, with chagrin, that this attempt was only a forerunner of the
+      fever that was developing, which in a few days was to make him a very sick
+      man. But for the moment his question seemed to her a temptation of the
+      devil, and, of course, resisted temptation made her faith stronger than
+      ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a deliciously cold spring night; Lewis had drawn the table, with
+      his books on it, close to the fire to try to keep warm, but he shivered,
+      even while his shoulders scorched, and somehow he could not keep his mind
+      on the black, rectangular characters of the Hebrew page before him. He had
+      been interested in Brother Nathan&rsquo;s explanation of Hosea&rsquo;s forecasting of
+      Shakerism, and he had admitted to himself that, if Nathan was correct,
+      there would be something to be said for Shakerism. The idea made him
+      vaguely uneasy, because, that &ldquo;something&rdquo; might be so conclusive, that&mdash;But
+      he could not face such a possibility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wanted to dig at the text, so that he might refute Nathan; but somehow
+      that night he was too dull to refute anybody, and by-and-by he pushed the
+      black-lettered page aside, and, crouching over the fire, held out his
+      hands to the blaze. He thought, vaguely, of the big fireplace in the old
+      study, and suddenly, in the chilly numbness of his mind, he saw it&mdash;with
+      such distinctness that he was startled. Then, a moment later, it changed
+      into the south chamber that had been his mother&rsquo;s bedroom&mdash;he could
+      even detect the faint scent of rose-geranium that always hung about her;
+      he noticed that the green shutters on the west windows were bowed, and
+      from between them a line of sunshine fell across the matting on the floor
+      and touched the four-poster that had a chintz spread and valance. How well
+      he knew the faded roses and the cockatoos on that old chintz! Over there
+      by the window he had caught her crying that time he had hurt her feelings,
+      &ldquo;just for his own pleasure&rdquo;; the old stab of this thought pierced through
+      the feverish mists and touched the quick. He struggled numbly with the
+      visualization of fever, brushing his hot hand across his eyes and trying
+      to see which was real&mdash;the geranium-sweet south chamber or the chilly
+      house on Lonely Lake Road. Athalia had given him pain in that same way&mdash;just
+      for her own pleasure. Poor little Tay! He was afraid it would hurt her,
+      some day, when she realized it; well, when she came to herself, when she
+      got through her playing at Shakerism, he must not let her know how great
+      the pain had been; she would suffer too much if she should understand his
+      misery: and Athalia didn&rsquo;t bear suffering well.... But how long she had
+      been getting over Shakerism! He had thought it would only last six months,
+      and here it was a year! Well, if Nathan&rsquo;s reading of the Prophecies was
+      right, then Athalia would never get over it. She ought never to get over
+      it. Then what would become of the farm and the sawmill? And instantly
+      everything was unreal again; he could hear the hum of the driving-wheel
+      and the screech of the saw tearing through a log; how fragrant the fresh
+      planks were, and the great heaps of sawdust&mdash;but the noise made his
+      head ache; and&mdash;and the fire didn&rsquo;t seem hot....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in one of those moments when the mists thinned, and he knew that he
+      was shivering over the stove instead of basking in the sunshine in his
+      mother&rsquo;s room that smelled of rose-geranium leaves, that Athalia came in.
+      She looked conscious and confused, full of a delightful embarrassment at
+      being for once alone with him. The color was deep on her cheeks, and her
+      eyes were starry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eldress asked me to bring your mail down to you, Brother Lewis,&rdquo; she
+      said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thalia!&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;I am so glad to see you, dear; I&mdash;I seem to be
+      rather used up, somehow.&rdquo; The mists had quite cleared away, but a violent
+      headache made his words stumble. &ldquo;I was just wondering, Thalia&mdash;don&rsquo;t
+      you think you might go home now? You&rsquo;ve had a whole year of it&mdash;and I
+      really ought to go home&mdash;the mill&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Lewis Hall! What do you mean!&rdquo; she said, forgetting her part in her
+      indignation. &ldquo;I am a Shakeress. You&rsquo;ve no right to speak so to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He blinked at her through the blur of pain. &ldquo;I wish you&rsquo;d stay with me,
+      Athalia, I&rsquo;ve got a&mdash;a sort of&mdash;headache. Never mind about being
+      a Shakeress just for to-night. It would be such a comfort to have you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Athalia, with a horrified look, had left him. She fled home in the
+      darkness with burning cheeks; she debated with herself whether she should
+      tell Eldress how her husband&mdash;no, Brother Lewis&mdash;had tried to
+      &ldquo;tempt&rdquo; her back to him. In her excitement at this lure of the devil she
+      even wondered whether Lewis had pretended that he was ill, to induce her
+      to stay with him? But even Athalia&rsquo;s imagination could not compass such a
+      thought of Lewis for more than a moment, so she only told the Eldress that
+      Brother Lewis had &ldquo;tried to persuade her to go back to the world with
+      him.&rdquo; The Lord had defended her, she said, excitedly, and she had
+      forbidden him to speak to her!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eldress Hannah looked perplexed. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not like Lewis. I wonder&mdash;&rdquo;
+       But she did not say what she wondered. Instead, she went early in the
+      morning down Lonely Lake Road to Lewis&rsquo;s house. The poor fellow was
+      entirely in the mists by that time, shivering and burning and quite
+      unconscious, saying over and over, &ldquo;She wouldn&rsquo;t stay; she wouldn&rsquo;t stay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Lure her back,&rsquo;&rdquo; said Eldress Hannah, with a snort. &ldquo;Poor boy! It&rsquo;s good
+      riddance for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Eldress Hannah stayed, and Brother Nathan joined her, and for many
+      days the little community was shaken with real anxiety, for they had all
+      come to love the solitary, waiting husband. Athalia, abashed, but still
+      cherishing the dear insult of having been tempted, took what little part
+      Eldress allowed her in the care of the sick man; but in the six or seven
+      weeks of his illness Brother Nathan and the Eldress were his devoted
+      nurses, and by-and-by a genuine friendship grew up between them. Old
+      Eldress Hannah&rsquo;s shrewd good-humor was as wholesome as a sound winter
+      apple, and Nathan had a gayety Lewis had never suspected. The old man grew
+      very confidential in those days of Lewis&rsquo;s convalescence; he showed his
+      simple heart with a generosity that made the sick man&rsquo;s lip tighten once
+      or twice and his eyes blur;&mdash;Lewis came to know all about Sister
+      Lydia; indeed, he knew more than the old man knew himself. When the
+      invalid grew stronger, Nathan wrestled with him over the Prophecies, and
+      Lewis studied them and the other foundation-stones of the Shaker faith
+      with a constantly increasing anxiety. &ldquo;Because,&rdquo; he said, with a nervous
+      blink, &ldquo;if you ARE right&mdash;&rdquo; But he left the sentence unfinished. Once
+      he said, with a feeble passion&mdash;for he was still very weak&mdash;&ldquo;I
+      tell you, Nathan, it isn&rsquo;t human!&rdquo; and then added, under his breath, &ldquo;but
+      God knows whether that&rsquo;s not in its fa-vor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When he was quite well again he was plainly preoccupied. He pored over the
+      Prophecies with a concentration that made him blind even to Athalia&rsquo;s
+      tired looks. Once, when some one said in his presence, &ldquo;Sister &lsquo;Thalia is
+      working too hard,&rdquo; he blinked at her in an absent way before the old,
+      anxious attention awoke in his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Athalia tossed her head and said, &ldquo;Brother Lewis has his own affairs to
+      think of, I guess!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he said, eagerly: &ldquo;Yes, &lsquo;Thalia; I have been thinking&mdash;Some day
+      I&rsquo;ll tell you. But not yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I haven&rsquo;t time to pry into other people&rsquo;s thoughts,&rdquo; she said,
+      acidly. And, indeed, just then her time was very full. She was enormously
+      useful to the community that second winter; her young power and strength
+      shone out against the growing weariness of the old sisters. &ldquo;Athalia&rsquo;s
+      capable,&rdquo; Eldress Hannah said, and the other sisters said &ldquo;Yee,&rdquo; and
+      smiled at one another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She IS useful,&rdquo; Sister Jane declared; &ldquo;do you know, she got through the
+      churning before nine? I&rsquo;d &lsquo;a&rsquo; been at it until eleven!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Athalia is like one of those candles that have a streak of soft wax in
+      &lsquo;em,&rdquo; Eldress Hannah murmured; &ldquo;but she&rsquo;s useful, as you say, Jane.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In January, when the Eldress fell ill, Athalia was especially useful. She
+      nursed her with a passion of faithfulness that made the other sisters
+      remonstrate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll wear yourself out, Athalia; you haven&rsquo;t had your clothes off for
+      three days and nights!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Lord has upheld me, and His right hand has sustained me,&rdquo; Athalia
+      quoted, with an uplifted look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yee,&rdquo; old Jane assented, &ldquo;but He likes sense, Athalia, and there ain&rsquo;t
+      any reason why two of us shouldn&rsquo;t take turns settin&rsquo; up with her
+      tonight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is my service,&rdquo; Athalia said, smiling joyously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eldress Hannah, lying with closed eyes, said, suddenly: &ldquo;Athalia, don&rsquo;t be
+      foolish and conceited. You go right along to your bed; Jane and Mary&rsquo;ll
+      look after me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It took Athalia a perceptible minute to get herself in hand sufficiently
+      to say, meekly, &ldquo;Yee, Eldress.&rdquo; When she had shut the door behind her with
+      perhaps something more than Shaker emphasis, the Eldress opened her eyes
+      and smiled at old Jane. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s smart,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yee,&rdquo; said Sister Jane; and there was a little chuckle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sick woman closed her eyes again and sighed. &ldquo;What a nurse Lydia was!&rdquo;
+       she said; and added, suddenly: &ldquo;How is Nathan getting along with Lewis?
+      There isn&rsquo;t much more time, I guess,&rdquo; she ended, mildly; &ldquo;she won&rsquo;t last
+      it out another summer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s done better than I expected to stay till now,&rdquo; Jane said; and the
+      Eldress nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was, perhaps, a natural result of Athalia&rsquo;s abounding energy that
+      toward the end of that second winter in the Shaker village she should grow
+      irritable. The spring work was very heavy that year. Brother William was
+      too feeble to do even the light, pottering tasks that had been allotted to
+      him, and his vague babblings about the spirits ceased altogether. In April
+      old Jane died, and that put extra burdens on Athalia&rsquo;s capable shoulders.
+      &ldquo;But I notice I don&rsquo;t get anything extra for my work, not even thanks!&rdquo;
+       she told Lewis, sharply, and forgot to call him &ldquo;Brother.&rdquo; She had walked
+      down Lonely Lake Road and stopped at his gate. She looked thinner; her
+      forget-me-not eyes were clouded, and there was an impatient line about her
+      lips, instead of the faint, ecstatic smile which was part of her early
+      experience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, there&rsquo;s lots of work to be done,&rdquo; he agreed, &ldquo;but when people do it
+      together&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you think?&rdquo;&mdash;she interrupted him, her lip drooping a little
+      in a half-contemptuous smile&mdash;&ldquo;they&rsquo;ve heard again from that Sister
+      Lydia who ran away! You know who I mean?&mdash;Brother Nathan is always
+      talking about her. They think she&rsquo;ll come back. <i>I</i> should say good
+      riddance! Though of course if it&rsquo;s genuine repentance I&rsquo;ll be glad. Only I
+      don&rsquo;t think it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How pleased Nathan will be!&rdquo; Lewis said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, he&rsquo;s pleased; he&rsquo;s rather too pleased for a Shaker, it strikes me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lewis frowned. &ldquo;There is joy in the presence of the angels,&rdquo; he reminded
+      her, gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Angels!&rdquo; she said, with a laugh; &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe so much in the angels
+      as I did before I knew so much about them. I understand that when this
+      &lsquo;angel&rsquo; comes back I am to give up my room to her, if you please, because
+      it used to be hers. Oh, I&rsquo;m of no importance now&mdash;Lewis,&rdquo; she broke
+      off, suddenly, &ldquo;who has our house this year?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Davis; he wants to re-lease it in May.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He just takes it by the year, doesn&rsquo;t he?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He nodded. &ldquo;Wants a five-years&rsquo; lease next time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, don&rsquo;t give it to him!&rdquo; she said; and added, frowning: &ldquo;You ought to
+      go back yourself, you know. It&rsquo;s foolish for you to be here. Why, it&rsquo;s
+      almost two years!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Time flies,&rdquo; he said, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She laughed and sighed. &ldquo;Yes&mdash;I mean yee&mdash;indeed, it does! I was
+      just thinking, Lewis, we&rsquo;ve been married ten years!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, eight years. We were married just eight years,&rdquo; he said, soberly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The color flew into her face. &ldquo;Oh, yee; we were married eight years when I
+      came in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at her with great tenderness. &ldquo;Athalia, I have to confess to you
+      that when you came I didn&rsquo;t think it would last with you. I distrusted the
+      Holy Spirit. And I came, myself, against my will, as you know. But now I
+      begin to think you were led&mdash;and perhaps you have led me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Athalia gave a little gasp&mdash;&ldquo;WHAT!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not sure yet,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You said Shakerism was unhuman!&rdquo; Athalia protested, with a thrill of
+      panic in her voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; he cried, his voice suddenly kindling, &ldquo;you know what Nathan is
+      always saying?&mdash;&lsquo;That&rsquo;s not against it&rsquo;? Athalia, its unhumanness, as
+      you call it, is why I think it may be of God. The human in us must give
+      way to the divine. &lsquo;First that which is natural; then that which is
+      spiritual.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;don&rsquo;t understand,&rdquo; she said, faintly; &ldquo;you are not a Shaker?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;not yet. But perhaps some day&mdash;I am trying to follow
+      you, Athalia.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She caught her breath with a frightened look. &ldquo;Follow&mdash;ME?&rdquo; Then she
+      burst out crying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Tay!&rdquo; he said, bewildered; &ldquo;what is it, dear?&rdquo; But she had left him,
+      stumbling blindly as she walked, her face hidden in her hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lewis went back into his house, and, lighting his lamp, sat down to pore
+      over one of Brother Nathan&rsquo;s books. He was concerned, but he smiled a
+      little; it was so like Athalia to cry when she was happy! He did not see
+      his wife for several days. The Eldress said Sister &lsquo;Thalia was not well,
+      and Lewis looked sorry, but made no comment. He was a little anxious, but
+      he did not dwell upon his anxiety. In the next few days he worked hard all
+      day in Brother Nathan&rsquo;s herb-house, where the air was hazy with the
+      aromatic dust of tansy and pennyroyal, then hurried home at night to sit
+      down to his books, so profoundly absorbed in them that sometimes he only
+      knew that it was time to sleep because the dawn fell white across the
+      black-lettered page.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But one night, a week later, when he came home from work, he did not open
+      his Bible; he stood a long time in his doorway, looking at the sunset,
+      and, as he looked, his face seemed to shine with some inner light. The
+      lake was like glass; high in the upper heavens thin golden lines of cloud
+      had turned to rippling copper; the sky behind the black circle of the
+      hills was a clear, pale green, and in the growing dusk the water whitened
+      like snow. &ldquo;&lsquo;Glass mingled with fire,&rsquo;&rdquo; he murmured to himself; &ldquo;yes,
+      &lsquo;great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are
+      Thy ways, Thou King of Saints!&rsquo;&rdquo; And what more marvellous work than this
+      wonder of his own salvation? Brought here against his will, against his
+      judgment! How he had struggled against the Spirit. He was humbled to the
+      earth at the remembrance of it; &ldquo;if I had my way, we wouldn&rsquo;t have walked
+      up the hill from the station that morning!&rdquo;...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The flushing heavens faded into ashes, but the solemn glow of
+      half-astonished gratitude lingered on his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lewis,&rdquo; some one said in the darkness of the lane&mdash;&ldquo;LEWIS!&rdquo; Athalia
+      came up the path swiftly and put her hands on his arm. &ldquo;Lewis, I&mdash;I
+      want to go home.&rdquo; She sobbed as she spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He started as if she had struck him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lewis, Lewis, let us go home!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The flame of mystical satisfaction went out of his face as a lighted
+      candle goes out in the wind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There isn&rsquo;t any home now, Athalia,&rdquo; he said, with a sombre look; &ldquo;there&rsquo;s
+      only a house. Come in,&rdquo; he added, heavily; &ldquo;we must talk this out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She followed him, and for a moment they neither of them spoke; he fumbled
+      about in the warm darkness for a match, and lifting the shade, lighted the
+      lamp on the table; then he looked at her. &ldquo;Athalia,&rdquo; he said, in a
+      terrified voice, &ldquo;I am&mdash;<i>I am a Shaker!</i>&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;no&mdash;no!&rdquo; she said. She grew very white, and sat down,
+      breathing quickly. Then the color came back faintly into her lips. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t
+      say it, Lewis; it isn&rsquo;t true. It can&rsquo;t be true!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is true,&rdquo; he said, with a groan. He had sunk into a chair, and his
+      face was hidden in his hands. &ldquo;What are we going to do?&rdquo; he said,
+      hoarsely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, you mustn&rsquo;t be!&rdquo; she cried; &ldquo;you can&rsquo;t be&mdash;that&rsquo;s all. You
+      can&rsquo;t STAY if I go!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must stay,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a stunned silence. Then she said, in an amazed whisper:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! You don&rsquo;t love me any more?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still he was silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&mdash;don&rsquo;t&mdash;love&mdash;me,&rdquo; she said, as if repeating some
+      astounding fact, which she could not yet believe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed to gather his courage up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have&mdash;&rdquo; he tried to speak; faltered, broke, went on: &ldquo;I have&mdash;the
+      kindliest feelings toward you, &lsquo;Thalia&rdquo;&mdash;his last word was in a
+      whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; she protested, with a frightened look&mdash;&ldquo;oh, stop!&mdash;don&rsquo;t
+      say THAT!&rdquo; He did not speak; and suddenly, looking at his fixed face, she
+      cried out, violently: &ldquo;Oh, why, why did I go up to the graveyard that day?
+      Why did you let me?&rdquo; She stared at him, her forget-me-not eyes dilating
+      with dismay. &ldquo;It all came from that. If we hadn&rsquo;t walked up the hill that
+      morning&mdash;&rdquo; He was speechless. Then, abruptly, she sprang to her feet,
+      and, running to him, knelt beside him and tried to pull down the hands in
+      which he had again hidden his face. &ldquo;Lewis, it&rsquo;s I&mdash;Tay! You don&rsquo;t
+      &lsquo;feel kindly&rsquo; to ME? Lewis, you haven&rsquo;t stopped loving me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am a Shaker,&rdquo; he said, helplessly. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t give up my religion, even
+      for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He got on his feet and stood before her, his empty palms hanging at his
+      sides in that strange gesture of entire hopelessness; he tried to speak,
+      but no words came. The lamp on the table flickered a little. Their shadows
+      loomed gigantic on the wall behind them; the little hot room was very
+      still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think you don&rsquo;t love me?&rdquo; Athalia said, between set teeth; &ldquo;<i>I know
+      better!</i>&rdquo; With a laugh she caught his arm with both her shaking hands,
+      and kissed him once, and then again. Still he was silent. Then with a cry
+      she threw herself against his breast. &ldquo;I love you,&rdquo; she said,
+      passionately, &ldquo;and you love me! Nothing on earth will make me believe you
+      don&rsquo;t love me,&rdquo;&mdash;and for one vital moment her lips burned against
+      his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His arms did not close about her,&mdash;but his hands clinched slightly.
+      Then he moved back a step or two, and she heard him sigh. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t, sister,&rdquo;
+       he said, gently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She threw up her hands with a frantic gesture. &ldquo;SISTER? My God!&rdquo; she said;
+      and left him.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      There was no further struggle between them. A week later she went away. As
+      he told her, &ldquo;the house was there&rdquo;&mdash;and to that she went until she
+      should go to find some whirl of life that would make her deaf to voices of
+      the past.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for Lewis, he did not see that miserable departure from the Family
+      House in the shabby old carryall that had been the Shakers&rsquo; one vehicle
+      for more than thirty years. He told Nathan he wanted to mow the
+      burial-ground up on the hill that morning. From that high and silent spot
+      he could see the long white road up from the settlement on one side and
+      down to the covered bridge on the other side. He sat under the pine-tree,
+      his scythe against the stone wall behind him, his clinched hands between
+      his knees. Sitting thus, he watched the road and the slow crawl of the
+      shaky old carriage. ... After it had passed the burying-ground and was out
+      of sight, he hid his face in his bent elbow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was some ten years afterward that word came to Eldress Hannah that
+      Athalia Hall was dying and wanted to see her husband; would he come to
+      her?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you go, Brother Lewis?&rdquo; Eldress asked him, doubtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yee, if you think best,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do think best,&rdquo; the old woman said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went, a bent, elderly man in a gray coat, threading his wavering way
+      through the noisy buffet of the streets of the city where Athalia had
+      elected to dwell. He found her in a gaudy hotel, full of the glare of
+      pushing, hurrying life. He sat down at her bedside, a little breathless,
+      and looked at her with mild, remote eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you forgive me, Lewis?&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have nothing to forgive, sister,&rdquo; he told her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t call me that!&rdquo; she cried, with feeble passion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked a little bewildered. &ldquo;Yee,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I forgive you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Lewis!&mdash;Lewis!&mdash;Lewis!&rdquo; she mourned; &ldquo;this is what I have
+      done!&rdquo; She wept pitifully. His face grew vaguely troubled, as if he did
+      not quite understand.... Then, abruptly, the veil lifted: his eyes dilated
+      with pain; he passed his hand over his forehead once or twice and sighed.
+      Then he looked down at the poor, dying face that once he had loved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, &lsquo;Thalia!&rdquo; he said, in a surprised and anguished voice; suddenly he
+      put his arm under the restless head. &ldquo;There, there, little Tay; don&rsquo;t
+      cry,&rdquo; he said, and smiled at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And with that she was content to fall asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
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+</html>
diff --git a/2685.txt b/2685.txt
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--- /dev/null
+++ b/2685.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Way to Peace, by Margaret Deland
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Way to Peace
+
+Author: Margaret Deland
+
+Posting Date: January 10, 2009 [EBook #2685]
+Release Date: June, 2001
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WAY TO PEACE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WAY TO PEACE
+
+By Margaret Deland
+
+
+
+
+     TO LORIN DELAND
+
+     KENNEBUNKPORT, MAINE AUGUST 12TH, 1910
+
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+ATHALIA HALL stopped to get her breath and look back over the road
+climbing steeply up from the covered bridge. It was a little after five,
+and the delicate air of dawn was full of wood and pasture scents--the
+sweetness of bay and the freshness of dew-drenched leaves. In the valley
+night still hung like gauze under the trees, but the top of the hill was
+glittering with sunshine.
+
+"Why, we've hardly come halfway!" she said.
+
+Her husband, plodding along behind her, nodded ruefully. "Hardly," he
+said.
+
+In her slim prettiness Athalia Hall looked like a girl, but she was
+thirty-four. Part of the girlishness lay in the smoothness of her white
+forehead and in the sincere intensity of her gaze. She wore a blue linen
+dress, and there was a little, soft, blue scarf under her chin; her
+white hat, with pink roses and loops of gray-blue ribbon, shadowed
+eager, unhumorous eyes, the color of forget-me-nots. Her husband was
+her senior by several years--a large, loose-limbed man, with a scholarly
+face and mild, calm eyes--eyes that were full of a singular tenacity of
+purpose. Just now his face showed the fatigue of the long climb up-hill;
+and when his wife, stopping to look back over the glistening tops of the
+birches, said, "I believe it's half a mile to the top yet!" he agreed,
+breathlessly. "Hard work!" he said.
+
+"It will be worth it when I get to the top and can see the view!" she
+declared, and began to climb again.
+
+"All the same, this road will be mighty hot when the sun gets full on
+it," her husband said; and added, anxiously, "I wish I had made you
+rest in the station until train-time." She flung out her hands with an
+exclamation: "Rest! I hate rest!"
+
+"Hold on, and I'll give you a stick," he called to her; "it's a help
+when you're climbing." He pulled down a slender birch, and, setting his
+foot on it, broke it off at the root. She stopped, with an impatient
+gesture, and waited while he tore off handfuls of leaves and whittled
+away the side-shoots.
+
+
+"Do hurry, Lewis!" she said.
+
+They had left their train at five o'clock in the morning, and had been
+sitting in the frowsy station, sleepily awaiting the express, when
+Athalia had had this fancy for climbing the hill so that she might see
+the view.
+
+"It looks pretty steep," her husband warned her.
+
+"It will be something to do, anyhow!" she said; and added, with a
+restless sigh, "but you don't understand that, I suppose."
+
+"I guess I do--after a fashion," he said, smiling at her. It was only in
+love's fashion, for really he was incapable of quite understanding her.
+To the country lawyer of sober piety and granite sense of duty, the
+rich variety of her moods was a continual wonder and sometimes a painful
+bewilderment. But whether he understood the impetuous inconsequence
+of her temperament "after a fashion," or whether he failed entirely to
+follow the complexity of her thought, he met all her fancies with a sort
+of tender admiration. People said that Squire Hall was henpecked; they
+also said that he had married beneath him. His father had been a
+judge and his grandfather a minister; he himself was a graduate of a
+fresh-water college, which later, when he published his exegesis on the
+Prophet Daniel, had conferred its little degree upon him and felt that
+he was a "distinguished son." With such a lineage he might have done
+better, people said, than to marry that girl, who was the most fickle
+creature and no housekeeper, and whose people--this they told one
+another in reserved voices--were PLAY-ACTORS! Athalia's mother, who
+had been the "play-actor," had left her children an example of
+duty--domestic as well as professional duty--faithfully done. As she did
+not leave anything else, Athalia added nothing to the Hall fortune; but
+Lewis's law practice, which was hardly more than conveyancing now and
+then, was helped out by a sawmill which the Halls had owned for two
+generations. So, as things were, they were able to live in humdrum
+prosperity which gave Lewis plenty of time to browse about among his
+grandfather's old theological books, and by-and-by to become a very
+sound Hebrew scholar, and spared Athalia much wholesome occupation which
+would have been steadying to her eager nature. She was one of those
+people who express every passing emotion, as a flower expresses each
+wind that sways it upon its stalk. But with expression the emotion
+ended.
+
+"But she isn't fickle," Lewis had defended her once to a privileged
+relation who had made the accusation, basing it on the fact that Athalia
+had sewed her fingers off for the Missionary Society one winter and
+done nothing the next--"Athalia ISN'T fickle," Lewis explained;
+"fickle people are insincere. Athalia is perfectly sincere, but she
+is temporary; that's all. Anyway, she wants to do something else this
+winter, and 'Thalia must have her head."
+
+"Your head's better than hers, young man," the venturesome relative
+insisted.
+
+"But it must be her head and not mine, Aunty, when it comes to doing
+what she thinks is right, even if it's wrong," he said, smiling.
+
+"Well, tell her she's a little fool!" cried the old lady, viciously.
+
+"You can't do that with 'Thalia," Lewis explained, patiently, "because
+it would make her unhappy. She takes everything so dreadfully hard; she
+feels things more than other people do."
+
+"Lewis," said the little, old, wrinkled, privileged great-aunt, "think
+a little less of her feelings and a little more of your own, or you'll
+make a mess of things."
+
+Lewis Hall was too respectful to tell the old lady what he thought of
+such selfish advice; he merely did not act upon it. Instead, he went on
+giving a great deal of thought to Athalia's "feelings." That was why
+he and she were climbing the hill in the dewy silence of this August
+morning. Athalia had "felt" that she wanted to see the view--though
+it would have been better for her to have rested in the station,
+Lewis thought;--("I ought to have coaxed her out of it," he reproached
+himself.) It certainly was a hard walk, considering that it followed
+a broken night in the sleeping-car. They had left the train at five
+o'clock in the morning, and were sitting in the station awaiting the
+express when Athalia had had this impulse to climb the hill. "It looks
+pretty steep," Lewis objected; and she flung out her hands with an
+impatient gesture.
+
+"I love to climb!" she said. So here they were, almost at the top,
+panting and toiling, Athalia's skirts wet with dew, and Lewis's face
+drawn with fatigue.
+
+"Look!" she said; "it's all open! We can sit down and see all over the
+world!" She left the road, springing lightly through the fringing bay
+and briers toward an open space on the hillside. "There is a gate in the
+wall!" she called out; "it seems to be some sort of enclosure. Lewis,
+help me to open the gate! Hurry! What a queer place! What do you suppose
+it is?"
+
+The gate opened into a little field bounded by a stone wall; the grass
+had been lately mowed, and the stubble, glistening with dew, showed
+the curving swaths of the scythe; across it, in even lines from wall to
+wall, were rows of small stakes painted black. Here and there were faint
+depressions, low, green cradles in the grass; each depression was
+marked at the head and foot by these iron stakes, hardly higher than the
+stubble itself.
+
+"Shakers' graveyard, I guess," Lewis said; "I've heard that they don't
+use gravestones. Peaceful place, isn't it?"
+
+Her vivid face was instantly grave. "Very peaceful! Oh," she added, as
+they sat down in the shadow of a pine, "don't you sometimes want to lie
+down and sleep--deep down in the grass and flowers?"
+
+"Well," he confessed, "I don't believe it would be as interesting as
+walking round on top of them."
+
+She looked at him in despair.
+
+"Come, now," he defended himself, "you don't take much to peace yourself
+at home."
+
+"You don't understand!" she said, passionately.
+
+"There, there, little Tay," he said, smiling, and putting a soothing
+hand on hers; "I guess I do--after a fashion."
+
+It was very still; below them the valley had suddenly brimmed with
+sunshine that flickered and twinkled on the birch leaves or shimmered
+on sombre stretches of pine and spruce. Close at hand, pennyroyal grew
+thick in the shadow of the wall; and just beyond, mullen candles cast
+slender bars of shade across the grass. The sunken graves and the lines
+of iron markers lay before them.
+
+"How quiet it is!" she said, in a whisper.
+
+"I guess I'll smoke," Lewis said, and scratched a match on his trousers.
+
+"How can you!" she protested; "it is profane!"
+
+He gave her an amused look, but lighted his cigar and smoked dreamily
+for a minute; then he drew a long breath. "I was pretty tired," he said,
+and turned to glance back at the road. A horse and cart were coming
+in at the open gate; the elderly driver, singing to himself, drew up
+abruptly at the sight of the two under the pine-tree, then drove toward
+them, the wheels of the cart jolting cheerfully over the cradling
+graves. He had a sickle in his hand, and as he clambered down from the
+seat, he said, with friendly curiosity:
+
+"You folks are out early, for the world's people."
+
+"Is this a graveyard?" Athalia demanded, impetuously.
+
+"Yee," he said, smiling; "it's our burial-place; we're Shakers."
+
+"But why are there just the stakes--without names?"
+
+"Why should there be names?" he said, whimsically; "they have new names
+now."
+
+"Where is your community? Can we go and visit it?"
+
+"Yee; but we're not much to see," he said; "just men and women, like
+you. Only we're happy. I guess that's all the difference."
+
+"But what a difference!" she exclaimed; and Lewis smiled.
+
+"I've come up for pennyroyal," the Shaker explained, sociably; "it grows
+thick round here."
+
+"Tell me about the Shakers," Athalia pleaded. "What do you believe?"
+
+"Well," he said, a simple shrewdness glimmering in his brown eyes,
+"if you go to the Trustees' House, down there in the valley, Eldress
+Hannah'll tell you all about us. And the sisters have baskets and pretty
+truck to sell--things the world's people like. Go and ask the Eldress
+what we believe, and she'll show you the baskets."
+
+She turned eagerly to her husband. "Never mind the ten-o'clock train,
+Lewis. Let us go!"
+
+"We could take a later train, all right," he admitted, "but--"
+
+"Oh, PLEASE!" she entreated, joyously. "We'll help you pick pennyroyal,"
+she added to the Shaker.
+
+But this he would not allow. "I doubt you'd be careful enough," he said,
+mildly; "Sister Lydia was the only female I ever knew who could pick
+herbs."
+
+"Do you get paid for the work you do?" Athalia asked, practically. Lewis
+flushed at the boldness of such a question, but the old man chuckled.
+
+"Should I pay myself?" he asked.
+
+"You own everything in common, don't you?" Lewis said.
+
+"Yee," said the Shaker; "we're all brothers and sisters. Nobody tries to
+get ahead of anybody else."
+
+"And you don't believe in marriage?" Athalia asserted.
+
+"We are as the angels of God," he said, simply.
+
+He left them and began to sickle his herbs, with the cheerfully obvious
+purpose of escaping further interruption.
+
+Athalia instantly bubbled over with questions, but Lewis could tell her
+hardly more of the Shakers than she knew already.
+
+"No, it isn't free love," he said; "they're decent enough. They believe
+in general love, not particular, I suppose.... 'Thalia, do you think
+it's worth while to wait over a train just to see the settlement?"
+
+"Of course it is! He said they were happy; I would like to see what kind
+of life makes people happy."
+
+He looked at the lighted end of his cigar and smiled, but he said
+nothing. Afterward, as they followed the cart across the field and out
+into the road, Athalia asked the old herb-gatherer many questions about
+the happiness of the community life, which he answered patiently enough.
+Once or twice he tried to draw into their talk the silent husband
+who walked at her side, but Lewis had nothing to say. Only when some
+reference was made to one of the Prophecies did he look up in sudden
+interest. "You take that to mean the Judgment, do you?" he said. And for
+the rest of the walk to the settlement the two men discussed the point,
+the Shaker walking with one hand on the heavy shaft, for the support it
+gave him, and Lewis keeping step with him.
+
+At the foot of the hill the road widened into a grassy street, on both
+sides of which, under the elms and maples, were the community houses,
+big and substantial, but gauntly plain; their yellow paint, flaking and
+peeling here and there, shone clean and fresh in the sparkle of morning.
+Except for a black cat whose fur glistened like jet, dozing on a white
+doorstep, the settlement, steeped in sunshine, showed no sign of life.
+There was a strange remoteness from time about the place; a sort of
+emptiness, and a silence that silenced even Athalia.
+
+"Where IS everybody?" she said, in a lowered voice; as she spoke, a
+child in a blue apron came from an open doorway and tugged a basket
+across the street.
+
+"Are there children here?" Lewis asked, surprised; and their guide said,
+sadly:
+
+"Not as many as there ought to be. The new school laws have made a great
+difference. We've only got two. Folks used to send 'em to us to bring
+up; oftentimes they stayed on after they were of age. Sister Lydia came
+that way. Well, well, she tired of us, Lydy did, poor girl! She went
+back into the world twenty years ago, now. And Sister Jane, she was a
+bound-out child, too," he rambled on; "she came here when she was six;
+she's seventy now."
+
+"What!" Lewis exclaimed; "has she never known anything but--this?"
+
+His shocked tone did not disturb the old man. "Want to see my
+herb-house?" he said. "Guess you'll find some of the sisters in the
+sorting-room. I'm Nathan Dale," he added, courteously.
+
+They had come to the open door of a great, weather-beaten building, from
+whose open windows an aromatic breath wandered out into the summer
+air. As they crossed the worn threshold, Athalia stopped and caught her
+breath in the overpowering scent of drying herbs; then they followed
+Brother Nathan up a shaky flight of steps to the loft. Here some elderly
+women, sitting on low benches, were sorting over great piles of herbs in
+silence--the silence, apparently, of peace and meditation. Two of
+them were dressed like world's people, but the others wore small gray
+shoulder-capes buttoned to their chins, and little caps of white net
+stretched smoothly over wire frames; the narrow shirrings inside the
+frames fitted so close to their peaceful, wrinkled foreheads that no
+hair could be seen.
+
+"I wish I could sit and sort herbs!" Athalia said, under her breath.
+
+Brother Nathan chuckled. "For how long?" he asked; and then introduced
+her to the three workers, who greeted her calmly and went on sorting
+their herbs. The loft was dark and cool; the window-frames, in which
+there were no sashes, opened wide on the still August fields and woods;
+the occasional brief words of the sorting-women seemed to drop into a
+pool of fragrant silence. The two visitors followed Brother Nathan down
+the room between piles of sorted herbs, and out into the sunshine again.
+Athalia drew a breath of ecstasy.
+
+"It's all so beautifully tranquil!" she whispered, looking about her
+with blue, excited eyes.
+
+"Tay and tranquillity!" Lewis said, with an amused laugh.
+
+But as they went along the grassy street this sense of tranquillity
+closed about them like a palpable peace. Now and then they stopped and
+spoke to some one--always an elderly person; and in each old face the
+experiences that life writes in unerasable lines about eyes and lips
+were hidden by a veil of calmness that was curiously unhuman.
+
+"It isn't canny, exactly," Lewis told his wife, in a low voice. But she
+did not seem to hear him. She asked many questions of Eldress Hannah,
+who had taken them in charge, and once or twice she burst into impetuous
+appreciation of the idea of brotherhood, and even of certain theological
+principles--which last diverted her husband very much. Eldress Hannah
+showed them the dairy, and the work-room, and all there was to see,
+with a patient hospitality that kept them at an infinite distance. She
+answered Lewis's questions about the community with a sad directness.
+
+"Yee; there are not many of us now. The world's people say we're dying
+out. But the Lord will preserve the remnant to redeem the world, young
+man. Yee; when they come in from the world they cast their possessions
+into the whole; we own nothing, for ourselves. Nay; we don't have many
+come. Brother William was the last. Why did he come?" She looked coldly
+at Athalia, who had asked the question. "Because he saw the way to
+peace. He'd had strife enough in the world. Yee," she admitted, briefly,
+"some fall from grace, and leave us. The last was Lydia. She was one
+of our children, and I thought she was of the chosen. But she was only
+thirty when she fell away, and you can't expect wisdom at that age. That
+was nearly twenty years ago. When she has tasted the dregs of the world
+she will come back to us--if she lives," Eldress Hannah ended.
+
+Athalia listened breathlessly, her rapt, unhumorous eyes fixed on
+Eldress Hannah's still face. Now and then she asked a question, and
+once cried out that, after all, why wasn't it the way to live? Peace and
+self-sacrifice and love! "Oh," she said, turning to her husband, "can't
+you feel the attraction of it? I should think even you could feel it!"
+
+"I think I feel it--after a fashion," he said, mildly; "I think I have
+always felt the attraction of community life."
+
+Afterward, when they had left all this somnolent peace and begun the
+long walk back to the station, he explained what he meant: "I couldn't
+say so before the Eldress, but of course there are times when anybody
+can feel the charm of getting rid of personal responsibility--and that
+is what community life really means. It's the relief of being a little
+cog in a big machine; in fact, the very attraction of it is a sort
+of temptation, to my way of looking at it. But it--well, it made me
+sleepy," he confessed.
+
+For once his wife had no reply. She was very quiet on that return
+journey in the cars, and in the days that followed she kept referring to
+their visit with a persistence that surprised her husband. She thought
+the net caps were beautiful; she thought the exquisite cleanness of
+everything was like a perfume--"the perfume of a wild rose!" she said,
+ecstatically. She thought the having everything in common was the way to
+live. "And just think how peaceful it is!"
+
+"Well, yes," Lewis said; "I suppose it's peaceful--after a fashion.
+Anything that isn't alive is peaceful."
+
+"But their idea of brotherhood is the highest kind of life!"
+
+"The only fault I have to find with it is that it isn't human," he said,
+mildly. He had no desire to prove or disprove anything; Athalia was
+looking better, just because she was interested in something, and that
+was enough for Lewis. When she proposed to read a book on Shakerism
+aloud, he fell into her mood with what was, for him, enthusiasm; he
+declared he would like nothing better, and he put his daily paper aside
+without a visible regret.
+
+"Well," he admitted, "I must say there's more to it than I supposed.
+They've studied the Prophecies; that's evident. And they're not narrow
+in their belief. They're really Unitarians."
+
+"Narrow?" she said--"they are as wide as heaven itself! And, oh, the
+peace of it!"
+
+"But they are NOT human," he would insist, smiling; "no marriage--that's
+not human, little Tay."
+
+It was not until two months later that he began to feel vaguely uneasy.
+"Yes; it's interesting," he admitted; "but nobody in these days would
+want to be a Shaker." To which she replied, boldly, "Why not?"
+
+That was all, but it was enough. Lewis Hall's face suddenly sobered.
+He had not stumbled along behind her in all her emotional experiences
+without learning to read the guide-posts to her thought. "I hope she'll
+get through with it soon," he said to himself, with a worried frown;
+"it isn't wholesome for a mind like 'Thalia's to dwell on this kind of
+thing."
+
+It was in November that she broke to him that she had written Eldress
+Hannah to ask if she might come and visit the community, and had been
+answered "Yee."
+
+Lewis was silent with consternation; he went out to the sawmill and
+climbed up into the loft to think it all out alone. Should he forbid
+it? He knew that was nonsense; in the first place, his conception of
+the relation of husband and wife did not include that kind of thing; but
+more than that, opposition would, he said to himself, "push her in."
+Not into Shakerism; "'Thalia couldn't be a Shaker to save her life," he
+thought, with an involuntary smile; but into an excited discontent with
+her comfortable, prosaic life. No; definite opposition to the visit must
+not be thought of--but he must try and persuade her not to go. How? What
+plea could he offer? His own loneliness without her he could not
+bring himself to speak of; he shrank from taking what seemed to him an
+advantage. He might urge that she would find it cold and uncomfortable
+in those old frame houses high up on the hills; or that it would be bad
+for her health to take the rather wearing journey at this time of year.
+But he knew too well how little effect any such prudent counsels would
+have. The very fact that her interest had lasted for more than three
+months showed that it had really struck roots into her mind, and mere
+prudence would not avail much. Still, he would urge prudence; then, if
+she was determined, she must go. "She'll get sick of it in a fortnight,"
+he said; but for the present he must let her have her head, even if
+she was making a mistake. She had a right to have her head, he reminded
+himself--"but I must tell those people to keep her warm, she takes cold
+so easily."
+
+He got up and looked out of the window; below, in the race, there was a
+jam of logs, and the air was keen with the pungent smell of sawdust and
+new boards. The whir and thud of the machinery down-stairs sent a faint
+quiver through the planks under his feet. "The mill will net a good
+profit this year," he said to himself, absently. "'Thalia can have
+pretty nearly anything she wants." And even as he said it he had a
+sudden, vague misgiving: if she didn't have everything she wanted,
+perhaps she would be happier? But the idea was too new and too subtle to
+follow up, so the result of that troubled hour in the mill-chamber was
+only that he made no very resolute objection to Athalia's acceptance
+of Eldress Hannah's permission to come. It had been given grudgingly
+enough.
+
+
+The family were gathered in the sitting-room; they had had their
+supper--the eight elderly women and the three elderly men, all that were
+left of the community. The room had the austere and shining cleanness
+which Athalia had called a perfume, but it was full of homely comfort.
+A blue-and-white rag carpet in the centre left a border of bare floor,
+painted pumpkin-yellow; there was a glittering airtight stove with
+isinglass windows that shone like square, red eyes; a gay patchwork
+cushion in the seat of a rocking-chair was given up to the black cat,
+whose sleek fur glistened in the lamplight. Three of the sisters knitted
+silently; two others rocked back and forth, their tired, idle hands
+in their laps, their eyes closed; the other three yawned, and spoke
+occasionally between themselves of their various tasks. Brother Nathan
+read his weekly FARMER; Brother William turned over the leaves of
+a hymn-book and appeared to count them with noiseless, moving lips;
+Brother George cut pictures out of the back of a magazine, yawning
+sometimes, and looking often at his watch. Into this quietness Eldress
+Hannah's still voice came:
+
+"I have heard from Lydia again." There was a faint stir, but no one
+spoke. "The Lord is dealing with her," Eldress Hannah said; "she is in
+great misery."
+
+Brother George nodded. "That is good; He works in a mysterious
+way--she's real miserable, is she? Well, well; that's good. The mercies
+of the Lord are everlasting," he ended, in a satisfied voice, and began
+to read again.
+
+"Amen!--amen!" said Brother William, vaguely.
+
+"Poor Lydy!" Brother Nathan murmured.
+
+"And I had another letter," the Eldress proceeded, "from that young
+woman who came here in August--Athalia Hall; do you remember?--she asked
+two questions to the minute! She wants to visit us."
+
+Brother Nathan looked at her over his spectacles, and one of the sisters
+opened her eyes.
+
+"I don't see why she should," Eldress Hannah added.
+
+Two of the old brothers nodded agreement.
+
+"The curiosity of the world's people does not help their souls," said
+one of the knitters.
+
+"She thinks we walk in the Way to Peace," said the Eldress.
+
+"Yee; we do," said Brother George.
+
+"Shall I tell her 'nay'?" the Eldress questioned, calmly.
+
+"Yee," said Brother George; and the dozing sisters murmured "Yee."
+
+"Wait," said Brother Nathan; "her husband--HE has something to him. Let
+her come."
+
+"But if she visited us, how would that affect him?" Eldress Hannah
+asked, surprised into faint animation.
+
+"If she was moved to stay it would affect him," Brother Nathan said,
+dryly; "he would come, too, and there are very few of us left, Eldress.
+He would be a great gain."
+
+There was a long silence. Brother William's gray head sagged on his
+shoulder, and the hymn-book slipped from his gnarled old hands. The
+knitting sisters began, one after another, to stab their needles into
+their balls of gray yarn and roll their work up in their aprons.
+
+"It's getting late, Eldress," one of them said, and glanced at the
+clock.
+
+"Then I'll tell her she may come?" said Eldress Hannah, reluctantly.
+
+"He can make the wrath of man to praise Him," Brother Nathan encouraged
+her.
+
+"Yee; but I never heard that He could make the foolishness of woman do
+it," the old woman said, grimly.
+
+As the brothers and sisters parted at the door of the sitting-room
+Brother Nathan plucked at the Eldress's sleeve; "Is she very
+wretched--Lydia? Where is she now, Eldress? Poor Lydy! poor little
+Lydy!"
+
+
+The fortnight of Athalia's absence wore greatly upon her husband.
+Apprehension lurked in the back of his mind. In the mill, or out on the
+farm, or when he sat down among his shabby, old, calf-skin books, he was
+assailed by the memory of all her various fancies during their married
+life. Some of them were no more remarkable or unexpected than this
+interest in Shakerism. He began to be slowly frightened. Suppose she
+should take it into her head--?
+
+When her fortnight was nearly up and he was already deciding whether,
+when he drove over to Depot Corners to meet her, he would take Ginny's
+colt or the new mare, a letter came to say she was going to stay a week
+longer.
+
+"I believe," she wrote--her very pen, in the frantic down-hill slope of
+her lines, betraying the excitement of her thoughts--"I believe that for
+the first time in my life I have found my God!" The letter was full
+of dashes and underlining, and on the last page there was a blistered
+splash into which the ink had run a little on the edges.
+
+Lewis Hall's heart contracted with an almost physical pang. "I must go
+and get her right off," he said; "this thing is serious!" And yet, after
+a wakeful night, he decided, with the extraordinary respect for her
+individuality so characteristic of the man--a respect that may be called
+foolish or divine, as you happen to look at it--he decided not to go.
+If he dragged her away from the Shakers against her will, what would be
+gained? "I must give her her head, and let her see for herself that it's
+all moonshine," he told himself, painfully, over and over; "my seeing
+it won't accomplish anything." But he counted the hours until she would
+come home.
+
+When she came, as soon as he saw her walking along the platform looking
+for him while he stood with his hand on Ginny's colt's bridle, even
+before she had spoken a single word, even then he knew what had
+happened--the uplifted radiance of her face announced it.
+
+But she did not tell him at once. On the drive home, in the dark
+December afternoon, he was tense with apprehension; once or twice he
+ventured some questions about the Shakers, but she put them aside with a
+curious gentleness, her voice a little distant and monotonous; her words
+seemed to come only from the surface of her mind. When he lifted her out
+of the sleigh at their own door he felt a subtle resistance in her whole
+body; and when, in the hall, he put his arms about her and tried to kiss
+her, she drew back sharply and said:
+
+"No!--PLEASE!" Then, as they stood there in the chilly entry, she burst
+into a passionate explanation: she had been convicted and converted! She
+had found her Saviour! She--
+
+"There, there, little Tay," he broke in, sadly; "supper is ready, dear."
+He heard a smothered exclamation--that it was smothered showed how
+completely she was immersed in a new experience, one of the details of
+which was the practice of self-control.
+
+But, of course, that night they had it out.... When they came into the
+sitting-room after supper she flung the news into his pale face: _she
+wished to join the Shakers_. But she must have his consent, she added,
+impatiently, because otherwise the Shakers would not let her come.
+
+"That's the only thing I don't agree with them about," she said,
+candidly; "I don't think they ought to make anything so solemn
+contingent upon the 'consent' of any other human being. But, of course,
+Lewis, it's only a form. I have left you in spirit, and that is what
+counts. So I told them I knew you would consent."
+
+She looked at him with those blue, ecstatic eyes, so oblivious to
+his pain that for a moment a sort of impersonal amazement at such
+self-centredness held him silent. But after the first shock he spoke
+with a slow fluency that pierced Athalia's egotism and stirred an
+answering astonishment in her. His weeks of vague misgiving, deepening
+into keen apprehension, had given him protests and arguments which,
+although they never convinced her, silenced her temporarily. She had
+never known her husband in this character. Of course, she had been
+prepared for objections and entreaties, but sound arguments and stern
+disapproval confused and annoyed her. She had supposed he would tell her
+she would break his heart; instead, he said, calmly, that she hadn't the
+head for Shakerism.
+
+"You've got to be very reasonable, 'Thalia, to stand a community life,
+or else you've got to be an awful fool. You are neither one nor the
+other."
+
+"I believe their doctrines," she declared, "and I would die for a
+religious belief. But I don't suppose you ever felt that you could die
+for a thing!"
+
+"I think I have--after a fashion," he said, mildly; "but dying for a
+thing is easy; it's living for it that's hard. You couldn't keep it up,
+Athalia; you couldn't live for it."
+
+Well, of course, that night was only the beginning. The days and weeks
+that followed were full of argument, of entreaty, of determination.
+Perhaps if he had laughed at her.... But it is dangerous to laugh
+at unhumorous people, for if they get angry all is lost. So he never
+laughed, nor in all their talks did he ever reproach her for not
+loving him. Once only his plea was personal--and even then it was only
+indirectly so.
+
+"Athalia," he said, "there's only one kind of pain in this world that
+never gets cured. It's the pain that comes when you remember that you've
+made somebody who loved you unhappy--not for a principle, but for your
+own pleasure. I know that pain, and I know how it lasts. Once I did
+something, just to please myself, that hurt mother's feelings. I'd give
+my right hand if I hadn't done it. It's twenty-two years ago, and I
+wasn't more than a boy, and she forgave me and forgot all about it. I
+have never forgotten it. I wish to God I could! 'Thalia, I don't want
+you to suffer that kind of pain."
+
+She saw the implication rather than the warning, and she burst out,
+angrily, that she wasn't doing this for "pleasure"; she was doing it for
+principle! It was for the salvation of her soul!
+
+"Athalia," he said, solemnly, "the salvation of our souls depends on
+doing our duty."
+
+"Ah!" she broke in, triumphantly, "out of your own lips:--isn't it my
+duty to do what seems to me right?"
+
+He considered a minute. "Well, yes; I suppose the most valuable example
+any one can set is to do what he or she believes to be right. It may be
+wrong, but that is not the point. We must do what we conceive to be
+our duty. Only, we've got to be sure, Tay, in deciding upon duty, in
+deciding what is right,--we've got to be sure that self-interest is
+eliminated. I don't believe anybody can decide absolutely on what is
+right without eliminating self."
+
+She frowned at this impatiently; its perfect fairness meant nothing to
+her.
+
+"You promised to be my wife," he went on with a curious sternness;
+"it is obviously 'right,' and so it is your first duty to keep your
+promise--at least, so long as my conduct does not absolve you from
+it." Then he added, hastily, with careful justice: "Of course, I'm not
+talking about promises to love; they are nonsense. Nobody can promise to
+love. Promises to do our duty are all that count."
+
+That was the only reproach he made--if it was a reproach--for his
+betrayed love. It was just as well. Discussion on this subject between
+husbands and wives is always futile. Nothing was ever accomplished by
+it; and yet, in spite of the verdict of time and experience that nothing
+is gained, over and over the jealous man, and still more frequently the
+jealous woman, protests against a lost love with a bitterness that
+kills pity and turns remorse into antagonism. But Lewis Hall made no
+reproaches. Perhaps Athalia missed them; perhaps, under her spiritual
+passion, she was piqued that earthly passion was so readily silenced.
+But, if she was, she did not know it. She was entirely sincere
+and intensely happy in a new experience. It was a long winter of
+argument;--and then suddenly, in early April, the break came....
+
+"I WILL go; I have a right to save my soul!"
+
+And he said, very simply, "Well, Athalia, then I'll go, too."
+
+"You? But you don't believe--" And almost in the Bible words he answered
+her, "No; but where you go, I will go; where you live, I will live." And
+then, a moment later, "I promised to cleave to you, little Tay."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE uprooting of their life took a surprisingly short time. In all those
+dark months of argument Lewis Hall had been quietly making plans for
+this final step, and such preparation betrayed his knowledge from the
+first of the hopelessness of his struggle--indeed, the struggle had only
+been loyalty to a lost cause. His calm assent to his wife's ultimatum
+left her a little blank; but in the immediate excitement of removal, in
+the thrill of martyrdom that came with publicity, the blankness did not
+last. What the publicity was to her husband she could not understand.
+He received the protests of his family in stolid silence; when the
+venturesome great-aunt told him what she thought of him, he smiled;
+when his brother informed him that he was a fool, he said he shouldn't
+wonder. When the minister, egged on by distracted Hall relatives,
+remonstrated, he replied, respectfully, that he was doing what he
+believed to be his duty, "and if it seems to be a duty, I can't help
+myself; you see that, don't you?" he said, anxiously. But that was
+practically all he found to say; for the most part he was silent.
+Athalia, in her absorption, probably had not the slightest idea of the
+agonies of mortification which he suffered; her imagination told her,
+truly enough, what angry relatives and pleasantly horrified neighbors
+said about her, and the abuse exhilarated her very much; but her
+imagination stopped there. It did not give her the family's opinion of
+her husband; it did not whisper the gossip of the grocery-store and the
+post-office; it did not repeat the chuckles or echo the innuendoes:
+
+"So Squire Hall's wife's got tired of him? Rather live with the Shakers
+than him!" "I like Hall, but I haven't any sympathy with him," the
+doctor said; "what in thunder did he let her go gallivanting off to
+visit the Shakers for? Might have known a female like Mrs. Hall'd get a
+bee in her bonnet. He ought to have kept her at home. _I_ would have. I
+wouldn't have had any such nonsense in my family! Well, for an obstinate
+man (and he IS obstinate, you know), the squire, when it comes to his
+wife, has no more backbone than a wet string."
+
+"Wonder if there's anything under it all?" came the sly insinuation of
+gossip; "wonder if she hasn't got something besides the Shakers up her
+sleeve? You wait!"
+
+If Athalia's imagination spared her these comments, Lewis's
+unimaginative common sense supplied them. He knew what other men and
+husbands were saying about him; what servants and gossip and friends
+insinuated to one another, and set his jaw in silence. He made no excuse
+and no explanation. Why should he? The facts spoke. His wife did prefer
+the Shakers to her husband and her home. To have interfered with her
+purpose by any plea of his personal unhappiness, or by any threat of an
+appeal to law, or even by refusing to give the "consent" essential to
+her admission, would not have altered these facts. As for his reasons
+for going with her, they would not have enhanced his dignity in the eyes
+of the men who wouldn't have had any such nonsense in their families: he
+must be near her to see that she did not suffer too much hardship, and
+to bring her home when she was ready to come.
+
+In those days of tearing his life up by the roots the silent man was
+just a little more silent, that was all. But the fact was burning into
+his consciousness: he couldn't keep his wife! That was what they said,
+and that was the truth. It seemed to him as if his soul blushed at
+his helplessness. But his face was perfectly stolid. He told Athalia,
+passively, that he had rented the house and mill to Henry Davis; that he
+had settled half his capital upon her, so that she would have some money
+to put into the common treasury of the community; then he added that
+he had taken a house for himself near the settlement, and that he would
+hire out to the Shakers when they were haying, or do any farm-work that
+he could get.
+
+"I can take care of myself, I guess," he said; "I used to camp out when
+I was a boy, and I can cook pretty well, mother always said." He looked
+at her wistfully; but the uncomfortable-ness of such an arrangement
+did not strike her. In her desire for a new emotion, her eagerness to
+FEEL--that eagerness which is really a sensuality of the mind--she was
+too absorbed in her own self-chosen hardships to think of his; which
+were not entirely self-chosen.
+
+
+"I think I can find enough to do," he said; "the Shakers need an
+able-bodied man; they only have those three old men."
+
+"How do you know that?" she asked, quickly.
+
+"I've been to see them twice this winter," he said.
+
+"Why!" she said, amazed, "you never told me!"
+
+"I don't tell you everything nowadays, 'Thalia," he said, briefly.
+
+In those two visits to the Shakers, Lewis Hall had been treated with
+great delicacy; there had been no effort to proselytize, and equally
+there had been no triumphing over the accession of his wife; in fact,
+Athalia was hardly referred to, except when they told him that they
+would take good care of her, and when Brother Nathan volunteered a brief
+summary of Shaker doctrines--"so as you can feel easy about her," he
+explained: "We believe that Christ was the male principle in Deity, and
+Mother Ann was the female principle. And we believe in confession of
+our sins, and communion with the dead--spiritualism, they call it
+nowadays--and in the virgin life. Shakers don't marry, nor give in
+marriage. And we have all things in common. That's all, friend. You see,
+we don't teach anything that Christ didn't teach, so she won't learn any
+evil from us. Simple, ain't it?"
+
+"Well, yes, after a fashion," Lewis Hall said; "but it isn't human."
+
+And Brother Nathan smiled mystically. "Maybe that isn't against it, in
+the long run," he said.
+
+
+They came to the community in the spring twilight. The brothers and
+sisters had assembled to meet the convert, and to give a neighborly hand
+to the silent man who was to live by himself in a little, gray, shingled
+house down on Lonely Lake Road. It was a supreme moment to Athalia. She
+had expected an intense parting from her husband when they left their
+own house; and she was ready to press into her soul the poignant thorn
+of grief, not only because it would make her FEEL, but because it would
+emphasize in her own mind the divine self-sacrifice which she wanted to
+believe she was making. But when the moment came to close the door of
+the old home behind them, her husband was cruelly commonplace about
+it--for poor Lewis had no more drama in him than a kindly Newfoundland
+dog! He was full of practical cares for his tenant, and he stopped even
+while he was turning the key in the lock, to "fuss," as Athalia said,
+over some last details of the transfer of the sawmill. Athalia could
+not tear herself from arms that placidly consented to her withdrawal; so
+there had been no rending ecstasies. In consequence, on the journey up
+to the community she was a little morose, a little irritable even, just
+as the drunkard is apt to be irritable when sobriety is unescapable....
+But at the door of the Family House she had her opportunity: she said,
+dramatically, "Good-night--_Brother Lewis_." It was an entirely sincere
+moment. Dramatic natures are not often insincere, they are only unreal.
+
+As for her husband, he said, calmly, "Good-night, dear," and trudged
+off in the cool May dusk down Lonely Lake Road. He found the door of
+the house on the latch, and a little fire glowing in the stove; Brother
+Nathan had seen to that, and had left some food on the table for him.
+But in spite of the old man's friendly foresight the house had all the
+desolation of confusion; in the kitchen there were two or three cases of
+books, broken open but not unpacked, a trunk and a carpet-bag, and some
+bundles of groceries; they had been left by the expressman on tables and
+chairs and on the floor, so that the solitary man had to do some lifting
+and unpacking before he could sit down in his loneliness to eat the
+supper Brother Nathan had provided. He looked about to see where he
+would put up shelves for his books, and as he did so the remembrance of
+his quiet, shabby old study came to him, almost like a blow.
+
+"Well," he said to himself, "this won't be for so very long. We'll be
+back again in a year, I guess. Poor little Tay! I shouldn't wonder if it
+was six months. I wonder, can I buy Henry Davis off, if she wants to go
+back in six months?"
+
+And yet, in spite of his calm understanding of the situation, the wound
+burned. As he went about putting things into some semblance of order,
+he paused once and looked hard into the fire.... When she did want to go
+back--let it be in six months or six weeks or six days--would things be
+the same? Something had been done to the very structure and fabric of
+their life. "Can it ever be the same?" he said to himself; and then
+he passed his hand over his eyes, in a bewildered way--"Will I be the
+same?" he said.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+SUMMER at the Shaker settlement, lying in the green cup of the hills,
+was very beautiful. The yellow houses along the grassy street drowsed in
+the sunshine, and when the wind stirred the maple leaves one could
+see the distant sparkle of the lake. Athalia had a fancy, in the warm
+twilights, for walking down Lonely Lake Road, that jolted over logs and
+across gullies and stopped abruptly at the water's edge. She had to pass
+Lewis's house on the way, and if he saw her he would call out to her,
+cheerfully,
+
+"Hullo, 'Thalia! how are you, dear?"
+
+And she, with prim intensity, would reply, "Good-evening, BROTHER
+Lewis."
+
+If one of the sisters was with her, they would stop and speak to him;
+otherwise she passed him by in such an eager consciousness of her part
+that he smiled--and then sighed. When she had a companion, Lewis and the
+other Shakeress would gossip about the weather or the haying, and Lewis
+would have the chance to say: "You're not overworking, 'Thalia? You're
+not tired?" While Athalia, in her net cap and her gray shoulder cape
+buttoned close up to her chin, would dismiss the anxious affection
+with a peremptory "Of course not! I have bread to eat you know not of,
+Brother Lewis." Then she would add, didactically, some word of dogma or
+admonition.
+
+But she had not much time to give to Brother Lewis's salvation--she was
+so busy in adjusting herself to her new life. Its picturesque details
+fascinated her--the cap, the brevity of speech, the small mannerisms,
+the occasional and very reserved mysticism, absorbed her so that she
+thought very little of her husband. She saw him occasionally on those
+walks down to the lake, or when, after a day in the fields with the
+three old Shaker men, Brother Nathan brought him home to supper.
+
+"We Shakers are given to hospitality," he said; "we're always looking
+for the angel we are going to entertain unawares. Come along home with
+us, Lewis." And Lewis would plod up the hill and take his turn at the
+tin washbasin, and then file down the men's side of the stairs to the
+dining-room, where he and the three old brothers sat at one table, and
+Athalia and the eight sisters sat at the other table. After supper he
+had the chance to see Athalia and to make sure that she was not looking
+tired. "You didn't take cold yesterday, 'Thalia? I saw you were out in
+the rain," he would say. And she, always a little embarrassed at such
+personal interest, would reply, primly, "I am not at all tired, Brother
+Lewis." Nathan used to walk home with his guest, and sometimes they
+talked of work that must be done, and sometimes touched on more
+unpractical things--those spiritual manifestations which at rare
+intervals centred in Brother William and were the hope of the whole
+community. For who could tell when the old man's incoherent muttering
+would break into the clear speech of one of those Heavenly Visitants
+who, in the early days, had descended upon the Shakers, and then, for
+some divine and deeply mysterious reason, withdrawn from such pure
+channels of communication, and manifested themselves in the world,--but
+through base and sordid natures. Poor, vague Brother William, who saw
+visions and dreamed dreams, was, in this community, the torch that held
+a smouldering spark of the divine fire, and when, in a cataleptic
+state, his faint intelligence fluttered back into some dim depths of
+personality, and he moaned and muttered, using awful names with babbling
+freedom, Brother Nathan and the rest listened with pathetic eagerness
+for a _"thus saith the Lord,"_ which should enflame the gray embers of
+Shakerism and give light to the whole world! When Nathan talked of these
+things he would add, with a sigh, that he hoped some day William would
+be inspired to tell them something more of Sister Lydia: "Once William
+said, 'Coming, coming.' _I_ think it meant Lydia; but Eldress thought
+it was Athalia; it was just before she came." Brother Nathan sighed. "I
+wish it had meant Lydy," he said, simply.
+
+If Lewis wished it had meant Lydy, he did not say so. And, indeed,
+he said very little upon any subject; Brother Nathan did most of the
+talking.
+
+"I fled from the City of Destruction when I was thirty," he told Lewis;
+"that was just a year before Sister Lydy left us. Poor Lydy! poor Lydy!"
+he said. "Oh, yee, _I_ know the world. I know it, my boy! Do you?"
+
+"Why, after a fashion," Lewis said; and then he asked, suddenly, "Why
+did you turn Shaker, Nathan?"
+
+"Well, I got hold of a Shaker book that set me thinking. Sister Lydia
+gave it to me. I met Sister Lydia when she had come down to the place I
+lived to sell baskets. And she was interested in my salvation, and
+gave me the book. Then I got to figuring out the Prophecies, and I saw
+Shakerism fulfilled them; and then I began to see that when you don't
+own anything yourself you can't worry about your property; well, that
+clinched me, I guess. Poor Sister Lydia, she didn't abide in grace
+herself," he ended, sadly.
+
+"I should have thought you would have been sorry then, that you--" Lewis
+began, but checked himself. "How about"--he said, and stopped to clear
+his voice, which broke huskily;--"how about love between man and woman?
+Husband and wife?"
+
+"Marriage is honorable," Brother Nathan conceded; "Shakers don't despise
+marriage. But they like to see folks grow out of it into something
+better, like--like your wife, maybe."
+
+"Well, your doctrine would put an end to the world," Lewis said,
+smiling.
+
+"I guess," said Brother Nathan, dryly, "there ain't any immediate danger
+of the world coming to an end."
+
+"I'd like to see that book," Lewis said, when they parted at the
+pasture-bars where a foot-path led down the hill to his own house.
+
+And that night Brother Nathan had an eager word for the family. "He's
+asked for a book!" he said. The Eldress smiled doubtfully, but Athalia,
+with a rapturous upward look, said,
+
+"May the Lord guide him!" then added, practically, "It won't amount to
+anything. He thinks Shakerism isn't human."
+
+"That's not against it, that's not against it!" Nathan declared,
+smiling; "I've told him so a dozen times!"
+
+But Athalia was so happy that first year, and so important, that she did
+not often concern herself with the welfare of the man who had been her
+husband. Instead--it was early in April--he concerned himself with hers;
+he tried, tentatively, to see if it wasn't almost time for Athalia "to
+get through with it." Of course, afterward, Sister Athalia realized,
+with chagrin, that this attempt was only a forerunner of the fever that
+was developing, which in a few days was to make him a very sick man.
+But for the moment his question seemed to her a temptation of the devil,
+and, of course, resisted temptation made her faith stronger than ever.
+
+It was a deliciously cold spring night; Lewis had drawn the table, with
+his books on it, close to the fire to try to keep warm, but he shivered,
+even while his shoulders scorched, and somehow he could not keep his
+mind on the black, rectangular characters of the Hebrew page before
+him. He had been interested in Brother Nathan's explanation of Hosea's
+forecasting of Shakerism, and he had admitted to himself that, if Nathan
+was correct, there would be something to be said for Shakerism. The
+idea made him vaguely uneasy, because, that "something" might be so
+conclusive, that--But he could not face such a possibility.
+
+He wanted to dig at the text, so that he might refute Nathan; but
+somehow that night he was too dull to refute anybody, and by-and-by he
+pushed the black-lettered page aside, and, crouching over the fire, held
+out his hands to the blaze. He thought, vaguely, of the big fireplace in
+the old study, and suddenly, in the chilly numbness of his mind, he saw
+it--with such distinctness that he was startled. Then, a moment later,
+it changed into the south chamber that had been his mother's bedroom--he
+could even detect the faint scent of rose-geranium that always hung
+about her; he noticed that the green shutters on the west windows were
+bowed, and from between them a line of sunshine fell across the matting
+on the floor and touched the four-poster that had a chintz spread and
+valance. How well he knew the faded roses and the cockatoos on that old
+chintz! Over there by the window he had caught her crying that time he
+had hurt her feelings, "just for his own pleasure"; the old stab of this
+thought pierced through the feverish mists and touched the quick. He
+struggled numbly with the visualization of fever, brushing his hot hand
+across his eyes and trying to see which was real--the geranium-sweet
+south chamber or the chilly house on Lonely Lake Road. Athalia had given
+him pain in that same way--just for her own pleasure. Poor little Tay!
+He was afraid it would hurt her, some day, when she realized it; well,
+when she came to herself, when she got through her playing at Shakerism,
+he must not let her know how great the pain had been; she would suffer
+too much if she should understand his misery: and Athalia didn't bear
+suffering well.... But how long she had been getting over Shakerism! He
+had thought it would only last six months, and here it was a year! Well,
+if Nathan's reading of the Prophecies was right, then Athalia would
+never get over it. She ought never to get over it. Then what would
+become of the farm and the sawmill? And instantly everything was unreal
+again; he could hear the hum of the driving-wheel and the screech of the
+saw tearing through a log; how fragrant the fresh planks were, and the
+great heaps of sawdust--but the noise made his head ache; and--and the
+fire didn't seem hot....
+
+It was in one of those moments when the mists thinned, and he knew that
+he was shivering over the stove instead of basking in the sunshine in
+his mother's room that smelled of rose-geranium leaves, that Athalia
+came in. She looked conscious and confused, full of a delightful
+embarrassment at being for once alone with him. The color was deep on
+her cheeks, and her eyes were starry.
+
+"Eldress asked me to bring your mail down to you, Brother Lewis," she
+said.
+
+"Thalia!" he said; "I am so glad to see you, dear; I--I seem to be
+rather used up, somehow." The mists had quite cleared away, but
+a violent headache made his words stumble. "I was just wondering,
+Thalia--don't you think you might go home now? You've had a whole year
+of it--and I really ought to go home--the mill--"
+
+"Why, Lewis Hall! What do you mean!" she said, forgetting her part in
+her indignation. "I am a Shakeress. You've no right to speak so to me."
+
+He blinked at her through the blur of pain. "I wish you'd stay with
+me, Athalia, I've got a--a sort of--headache. Never mind about being a
+Shakeress just for to-night. It would be such a comfort to have you."
+
+But Athalia, with a horrified look, had left him. She fled home in
+the darkness with burning cheeks; she debated with herself whether she
+should tell Eldress how her husband--no, Brother Lewis--had tried to
+"tempt" her back to him. In her excitement at this lure of the devil she
+even wondered whether Lewis had pretended that he was ill, to induce her
+to stay with him? But even Athalia's imagination could not compass such
+a thought of Lewis for more than a moment, so she only told the Eldress
+that Brother Lewis had "tried to persuade her to go back to the world
+with him." The Lord had defended her, she said, excitedly, and she had
+forbidden him to speak to her!
+
+Eldress Hannah looked perplexed. "That's not like Lewis. I wonder--"
+But she did not say what she wondered. Instead, she went early in the
+morning down Lonely Lake Road to Lewis's house. The poor fellow was
+entirely in the mists by that time, shivering and burning and quite
+unconscious, saying over and over, "She wouldn't stay; she wouldn't
+stay."
+
+"'Lure her back,'" said Eldress Hannah, with a snort. "Poor boy! It's
+good riddance for him."
+
+But Eldress Hannah stayed, and Brother Nathan joined her, and for many
+days the little community was shaken with real anxiety, for they had all
+come to love the solitary, waiting husband. Athalia, abashed, but still
+cherishing the dear insult of having been tempted, took what little part
+Eldress allowed her in the care of the sick man; but in the six or seven
+weeks of his illness Brother Nathan and the Eldress were his devoted
+nurses, and by-and-by a genuine friendship grew up between them. Old
+Eldress Hannah's shrewd good-humor was as wholesome as a sound winter
+apple, and Nathan had a gayety Lewis had never suspected. The old man
+grew very confidential in those days of Lewis's convalescence; he showed
+his simple heart with a generosity that made the sick man's lip tighten
+once or twice and his eyes blur;--Lewis came to know all about Sister
+Lydia; indeed, he knew more than the old man knew himself. When the
+invalid grew stronger, Nathan wrestled with him over the Prophecies, and
+Lewis studied them and the other foundation-stones of the Shaker faith
+with a constantly increasing anxiety. "Because," he said, with a nervous
+blink, "if you ARE right--" But he left the sentence unfinished. Once
+he said, with a feeble passion--for he was still very weak--"I tell
+you, Nathan, it isn't human!" and then added, under his breath, "but God
+knows whether that's not in its fa-vor."
+
+
+When he was quite well again he was plainly preoccupied. He pored
+over the Prophecies with a concentration that made him blind even to
+Athalia's tired looks. Once, when some one said in his presence, "Sister
+'Thalia is working too hard," he blinked at her in an absent way before
+the old, anxious attention awoke in his eyes.
+
+Athalia tossed her head and said, "Brother Lewis has his own affairs to
+think of, I guess!"
+
+And he said, eagerly: "Yes, 'Thalia; I have been thinking--Some day I'll
+tell you. But not yet."
+
+"Oh, I haven't time to pry into other people's thoughts," she said,
+acidly. And, indeed, just then her time was very full. She was
+enormously useful to the community that second winter; her young power
+and strength shone out against the growing weariness of the old sisters.
+"Athalia's capable," Eldress Hannah said, and the other sisters said
+"Yee," and smiled at one another.
+
+"She IS useful," Sister Jane declared; "do you know, she got through the
+churning before nine? I'd 'a' been at it until eleven!"
+
+"Athalia is like one of those candles that have a streak of soft wax in
+'em," Eldress Hannah murmured; "but she's useful, as you say, Jane."
+
+In January, when the Eldress fell ill, Athalia was especially useful.
+She nursed her with a passion of faithfulness that made the other
+sisters remonstrate.
+
+"You'll wear yourself out, Athalia; you haven't had your clothes off for
+three days and nights!"
+
+"The Lord has upheld me, and His right hand has sustained me," Athalia
+quoted, with an uplifted look.
+
+"Yee," old Jane assented, "but He likes sense, Athalia, and there
+ain't any reason why two of us shouldn't take turns settin' up with her
+tonight."
+
+"This is my service," Athalia said, smiling joyously.
+
+Eldress Hannah, lying with closed eyes, said, suddenly: "Athalia, don't
+be foolish and conceited. You go right along to your bed; Jane and
+Mary'll look after me."
+
+It took Athalia a perceptible minute to get herself in hand sufficiently
+to say, meekly, "Yee, Eldress." When she had shut the door behind her
+with perhaps something more than Shaker emphasis, the Eldress opened her
+eyes and smiled at old Jane. "She's smart," she said.
+
+"Yee," said Sister Jane; and there was a little chuckle.
+
+The sick woman closed her eyes again and sighed. "What a nurse Lydia
+was!" she said; and added, suddenly: "How is Nathan getting along with
+Lewis? There isn't much more time, I guess," she ended, mildly; "she
+won't last it out another summer."
+
+"She's done better than I expected to stay till now," Jane said; and the
+Eldress nodded.
+
+But it was, perhaps, a natural result of Athalia's abounding energy that
+toward the end of that second winter in the Shaker village she should
+grow irritable. The spring work was very heavy that year. Brother
+William was too feeble to do even the light, pottering tasks that had
+been allotted to him, and his vague babblings about the spirits ceased
+altogether. In April old Jane died, and that put extra burdens on
+Athalia's capable shoulders. "But I notice I don't get anything extra
+for my work, not even thanks!" she told Lewis, sharply, and forgot to
+call him "Brother." She had walked down Lonely Lake Road and stopped at
+his gate. She looked thinner; her forget-me-not eyes were clouded,
+and there was an impatient line about her lips, instead of the faint,
+ecstatic smile which was part of her early experience.
+
+"Yes, there's lots of work to be done," he agreed, "but when people do
+it together--"
+
+"What do you think?"--she interrupted him, her lip drooping a little in
+a half-contemptuous smile--"they've heard again from that Sister Lydia
+who ran away! You know who I mean?--Brother Nathan is always talking
+about her. They think she'll come back. _I_ should say good riddance!
+Though of course if it's genuine repentance I'll be glad. Only I don't
+think it is."
+
+"How pleased Nathan will be!" Lewis said.
+
+"Oh, he's pleased; he's rather too pleased for a Shaker, it strikes me."
+
+Lewis frowned. "There is joy in the presence of the angels," he reminded
+her, gravely.
+
+"Angels!" she said, with a laugh; "I don't believe so much in the angels
+as I did before I knew so much about them. I understand that when
+this 'angel' comes back I am to give up my room to her, if you please,
+because it used to be hers. Oh, I'm of no importance now--Lewis," she
+broke off, suddenly, "who has our house this year?"
+
+"Davis; he wants to re-lease it in May."
+
+"He just takes it by the year, doesn't he?" she asked.
+
+He nodded. "Wants a five-years' lease next time."
+
+"Well, don't give it to him!" she said; and added, frowning: "You ought
+to go back yourself, you know. It's foolish for you to be here. Why,
+it's almost two years!"
+
+"Time flies," he said, smiling.
+
+She laughed and sighed. "Yes--I mean yee--indeed, it does! I was just
+thinking, Lewis, we've been married ten years!"
+
+"No, eight years. We were married just eight years," he said, soberly.
+
+The color flew into her face. "Oh, yee; we were married eight years when
+I came in."
+
+He looked at her with great tenderness. "Athalia, I have to confess
+to you that when you came I didn't think it would last with you. I
+distrusted the Holy Spirit. And I came, myself, against my will, as you
+know. But now I begin to think you were led--and perhaps you have led
+me."
+
+Athalia gave a little gasp--"WHAT!"
+
+"I am not sure yet," he said.
+
+"You said Shakerism was unhuman!" Athalia protested, with a thrill of
+panic in her voice.
+
+"Ah!" he cried, his voice suddenly kindling, "you know what Nathan is
+always saying?--'That's not against it'? Athalia, its unhumanness, as
+you call it, is why I think it may be of God. The human in us must give
+way to the divine. 'First that which is natural; then that which is
+spiritual.'"
+
+"I--don't understand," she said, faintly; "you are not a Shaker?"
+
+"No," he said, "not yet. But perhaps some day--I am trying to follow
+you, Athalia."
+
+She caught her breath with a frightened look. "Follow--ME?" Then she
+burst out crying.
+
+"Why, Tay!" he said, bewildered; "what is it, dear?" But she had left
+him, stumbling blindly as she walked, her face hidden in her hands.
+
+Lewis went back into his house, and, lighting his lamp, sat down to pore
+over one of Brother Nathan's books. He was concerned, but he smiled a
+little; it was so like Athalia to cry when she was happy! He did not see
+his wife for several days. The Eldress said Sister 'Thalia was not well,
+and Lewis looked sorry, but made no comment. He was a little anxious,
+but he did not dwell upon his anxiety. In the next few days he worked
+hard all day in Brother Nathan's herb-house, where the air was hazy with
+the aromatic dust of tansy and pennyroyal, then hurried home at night to
+sit down to his books, so profoundly absorbed in them that sometimes he
+only knew that it was time to sleep because the dawn fell white across
+the black-lettered page.
+
+But one night, a week later, when he came home from work, he did not
+open his Bible; he stood a long time in his doorway, looking at the
+sunset, and, as he looked, his face seemed to shine with some inner
+light. The lake was like glass; high in the upper heavens thin golden
+lines of cloud had turned to rippling copper; the sky behind the black
+circle of the hills was a clear, pale green, and in the growing dusk the
+water whitened like snow. "'Glass mingled with fire,'" he murmured to
+himself; "yes, 'great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty;
+just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of Saints!'" And what more
+marvellous work than this wonder of his own salvation? Brought here
+against his will, against his judgment! How he had struggled against the
+Spirit. He was humbled to the earth at the remembrance of it; "if I
+had my way, we wouldn't have walked up the hill from the station that
+morning!"...
+
+The flushing heavens faded into ashes, but the solemn glow of
+half-astonished gratitude lingered on his face.
+
+"Lewis," some one said in the darkness of the lane--"LEWIS!" Athalia
+came up the path swiftly and put her hands on his arm. "Lewis, I--I want
+to go home." She sobbed as she spoke.
+
+He started as if she had struck him.
+
+"Lewis, Lewis, let us go home!"
+
+The flame of mystical satisfaction went out of his face as a lighted
+candle goes out in the wind.
+
+"There isn't any home now, Athalia," he said, with a sombre look;
+"there's only a house. Come in," he added, heavily; "we must talk this
+out."
+
+She followed him, and for a moment they neither of them spoke; he
+fumbled about in the warm darkness for a match, and lifting the shade,
+lighted the lamp on the table; then he looked at her. "Athalia," he
+said, in a terrified voice, "I am--_I am a Shaker!_"
+
+"No--no--no!" she said. She grew very white, and sat down, breathing
+quickly. Then the color came back faintly into her lips. "Don't say it,
+Lewis; it isn't true. It can't be true!"
+
+"It is true," he said, with a groan. He had sunk into a chair, and
+his face was hidden in his hands. "What are we going to do?" he said,
+hoarsely.
+
+"Why, you mustn't be!" she cried; "you can't be--that's all. You can't
+STAY if I go!"
+
+"I must stay," he said.
+
+There was a stunned silence. Then she said, in an amazed whisper:
+
+"What! You don't love me any more?"
+
+Still he was silent.
+
+"You--don't--love--me," she said, as if repeating some astounding fact,
+which she could not yet believe.
+
+He seemed to gather his courage up.
+
+"I have--" he tried to speak; faltered, broke, went on: "I have--the
+kindliest feelings toward you, 'Thalia"--his last word was in a whisper.
+
+"Stop!" she protested, with a frightened look--"oh, stop!--don't say
+THAT!" He did not speak; and suddenly, looking at his fixed face, she
+cried out, violently: "Oh, why, why did I go up to the graveyard that
+day? Why did you let me?" She stared at him, her forget-me-not eyes
+dilating with dismay. "It all came from that. If we hadn't walked up the
+hill that morning--" He was speechless. Then, abruptly, she sprang to
+her feet, and, running to him, knelt beside him and tried to pull down
+the hands in which he had again hidden his face. "Lewis, it's I--Tay!
+You don't 'feel kindly' to ME? Lewis, you haven't stopped loving me?"
+
+"I am a Shaker," he said, helplessly. "I can't give up my religion, even
+for you."
+
+He got on his feet and stood before her, his empty palms hanging at his
+sides in that strange gesture of entire hopelessness; he tried to speak,
+but no words came. The lamp on the table flickered a little. Their
+shadows loomed gigantic on the wall behind them; the little hot room was
+very still.
+
+"You think you don't love me?" Athalia said, between set teeth; "_I know
+better!_" With a laugh she caught his arm with both her shaking hands,
+and kissed him once, and then again. Still he was silent. Then with
+a cry she threw herself against his breast. "I love you," she said,
+passionately, "and you love me! Nothing on earth will make me believe
+you don't love me,"--and for one vital moment her lips burned against
+his.
+
+His arms did not close about her,--but his hands clinched slightly. Then
+he moved back a step or two, and she heard him sigh. "Don't, sister," he
+said, gently.
+
+She threw up her hands with a frantic gesture. "SISTER? My God!" she
+said; and left him.
+
+* * * * *
+
+
+There was no further struggle between them. A week later she went away.
+As he told her, "the house was there"--and to that she went until she
+should go to find some whirl of life that would make her deaf to voices
+of the past.
+
+As for Lewis, he did not see that miserable departure from the Family
+House in the shabby old carryall that had been the Shakers' one
+vehicle for more than thirty years. He told Nathan he wanted to mow the
+burial-ground up on the hill that morning. From that high and silent
+spot he could see the long white road up from the settlement on one
+side and down to the covered bridge on the other side. He sat under the
+pine-tree, his scythe against the stone wall behind him, his clinched
+hands between his knees. Sitting thus, he watched the road and the
+slow crawl of the shaky old carriage. ... After it had passed the
+burying-ground and was out of sight, he hid his face in his bent elbow.
+
+
+It was some ten years afterward that word came to Eldress Hannah that
+Athalia Hall was dying and wanted to see her husband; would he come to
+her?
+
+"Will you go, Brother Lewis?" Eldress asked him, doubtfully.
+
+"Yee, if you think best," he said.
+
+"I do think best," the old woman said.
+
+He went, a bent, elderly man in a gray coat, threading his wavering way
+through the noisy buffet of the streets of the city where Athalia had
+elected to dwell. He found her in a gaudy hotel, full of the glare of
+pushing, hurrying life. He sat down at her bedside, a little breathless,
+and looked at her with mild, remote eyes.
+
+"Do you forgive me, Lewis?" she said.
+
+"I have nothing to forgive, sister," he told her.
+
+"Don't call me that!" she cried, with feeble passion.
+
+He looked a little bewildered. "Yee," he said, "I forgive you."
+
+"Oh, Lewis!--Lewis!--Lewis!" she mourned; "this is what I have done!"
+She wept pitifully. His face grew vaguely troubled, as if he did not
+quite understand.... Then, abruptly, the veil lifted: his eyes dilated
+with pain; he passed his hand over his forehead once or twice and
+sighed. Then he looked down at the poor, dying face that once he had
+loved.
+
+"Why, 'Thalia!" he said, in a surprised and anguished voice; suddenly
+he put his arm under the restless head. "There, there, little Tay; don't
+cry," he said, and smiled at her.
+
+And with that she was content to fall asleep.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Way to Peace, by Margaret Deland
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext The Way to Peace, by Margaret Deland
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+
+
+
+
+The Way to Peace
+
+by Margaret Deland
+
+
+
+
+TO LORIN DELAND
+
+KENNEBUNKPORT, MAINE AUGUST 12TH, 1910
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+ATHALIA HALL stopped to get her breath and look back over the road
+climbing steeply up from the covered bridge.  It was a little after five,
+and the delicate air of dawn was full of wood and pasture scents--
+the sweetness of bay and the freshness of dew-drenched leaves.
+In the valley night still hung like gauze under the trees, but the top
+of the hill was glittering with sunshine.
+
+"Why, we've hardly come halfway!" she said.
+
+Her husband, plodding along behind her, nodded ruefully.
+"Hardly," he said.
+
+In her slim prettiness Athalia Hall looked like a girl, but she
+was thirty-four. Part of the girlishness lay in the smoothness
+of her white forehead and in the sincere intensity of her gaze.
+She wore a blue linen dress, and there was a little, soft, blue scarf
+under her chin; her white hat, with pink roses and loops
+of gray-blue ribbon, shadowed eager, unhumorous eyes, the color
+of forget-me-nots. Her husband was her senior by several years--
+a large, loose-limbed man, with a scholarly face and mild,
+calm eyes--eyes that were full of a singular tenacity of purpose.
+Just now his face showed the fatigue of the long climb up-hill;
+and when his wife, stopping to look back over the glistening tops
+of the birches, said, "I believe it's half a mile to the top yet!"
+he agreed, breathlessly.  "Hard work!" he said.
+
+"It will be worth it when I get to the top and can see the view!"
+she declared, and began to climb again.
+
+"All the same, this road will be mighty hot when the sun gets full
+on it," her husband said; and added, anxiously, "I wish I had made
+you rest in the station until train-time." She flung out her hands
+with an exclamation:  "Rest!  I hate rest!"
+
+"Hold on, and I'll give you a stick," he called to her;
+"it's a help when you're climbing."  He pulled down a slender
+birch, and, setting his foot on it, broke it off at the root.
+She stopped, with an impatient gesture, and waited while he tore
+off handfuls of leaves and whittled away the side-shoots.
+
+
+"Do hurry, Lewis!" she said.
+
+They had left their train at five o'clock in the morning, and had
+been sitting in the frowsy station, sleepily awaiting the express,
+when Athalia had had this fancy for climbing the hill so that she
+might see the view.
+
+"It looks pretty steep," her husband warned her.
+
+"It will be something to do, anyhow!" she said; and added,
+with a restless sigh, "but you don't understand that, I suppose."
+
+"I guess I do--after a fashion," he said, smiling at her.
+It was only in love's fashion, for really he was incapable
+of quite understanding her.  To the country lawyer of sober
+piety and granite sense of duty, the rich variety of her moods
+was a continual wonder and sometimes a painful bewilderment.
+But whether he understood the impetuous inconsequence of her
+temperament "after a fashion," or whether he failed entirely
+to follow the complexity of her thought, he met all her fancies
+with a sort of tender admiration.  People said that Squire Hall
+was henpecked; they also said that he had married beneath him.
+His father had been a judge and his grandfather a minister;
+he himself was a graduate of a fresh-water college, which later,
+when he published his exegesis on the Prophet Daniel, had conferred
+its little degree upon him and felt that he was a "distinguished son."
+With such a lineage he might have done better, people said,
+than to marry that girl, who was the most fickle creature
+and no housekeeper, and whose people--this they told one another
+in reserved voices--were PLAY-ACTORS!  Athalia's mother, who had
+been the "play-actor," had left her children an example of duty--
+domestic as well as professional duty--faithfully done.
+As she did not leave anything else, Athalia added nothing
+to the Hall fortune; but Lewis's law practice, which was
+hardly more than conveyancing now and then, was helped out
+by a sawmill which the Halls had owned for two generations.
+So, as things were, they were able to live in humdrum prosperity
+which gave Lewis plenty of time to browse about among his
+grandfather's old theological books, and by-and-by to become
+a very sound Hebrew scholar, and spared Athalia much wholesome
+occupation which would have been steadying to her eager nature.
+She was one of those people who express every passing emotion,
+as a flower expresses each wind that sways it upon its stalk.
+But with expression the emotion ended.
+
+"But she isn't fickle," Lewis had defended her once to a privileged
+relation who had made the accusation, basing it on the fact that Athalia
+had sewed her fingers off for the Missionary Society one winter and done
+nothing the next--"Athalia ISN'T fickle," Lewis explained; "fickle people
+are insincere.  Athalia is perfectly sincere, but she is temporary;
+that's all.  Anyway, she wants to do something else this winter,
+and 'Thalia must have her head."
+
+"Your head's better than hers, young man," the venturesome
+relative insisted.
+
+"But it must be her head and not mine, Aunty, when it comes
+to doing what she thinks is right, even if it's wrong,"
+he said, smiling.
+
+"Well, tell her she's a little fool!" cried the old lady, viciously.
+
+"You can't do that with 'Thalia," Lewis explained, patiently, "because it
+would make her unhappy.  She takes everything so dreadfully hard;
+she feels things more than other people do."
+
+"Lewis," said the little, old, wrinkled, privileged great-aunt,
+"think a little less of her feelings and a little more of your own,
+or you'll make a mess of things."
+
+Lewis Hall was too respectful to tell the old lady what
+he thought of such selfish advice; he merely did not act
+upon it.  Instead, he went on giving a great deal of thought
+to Athalia's "feelings." That was why he and she were climbing
+the hill in the dewy silence of this August morning.
+Athalia had "felt" that she wanted to see the view--though it
+would have been better for her to have rested in the station,
+Lewis thought;--("I ought to have coaxed her out of it,"
+he reproached himself.)  It certainly was a hard walk,
+considering that it followed a broken night in the sleeping-car.
+They had left the train at five o'clock in the morning,
+and were sitting in the station awaiting the express
+when Athalia had had this impulse to climb the hill.
+"It looks pretty steep," Lewis objected; and she flung out
+her hands with an impatient gesture.
+
+"I love to climb!" she said.  So here they were, almost at the top,
+panting and toiling, Athalia's skirts wet with dew, and Lewis's face
+drawn with fatigue.
+
+"Look!" she said; "it's all open!  We can sit down and see all over
+the world!"  She left the road, springing lightly through the fringing
+bay and briers toward an open space on the hillside.  "There is a gate
+in the wall!" she called out; "it seems to be some sort of enclosure.
+Lewis, help me to open the gate!  Hurry!  What a queer place!
+What do you suppose it is?"
+
+The gate opened into a little field bounded by a stone wall;
+the grass had been lately mowed, and the stubble, glistening with dew,
+showed the curving swaths of the scythe; across it, in even lines
+from wall to wall, were rows of small stakes painted black.
+Here and there were faint depressions, low, green cradles in the grass;
+each depression was marked at the head and foot by these iron stakes,
+hardly higher than the stubble itself.
+
+"Shakers' graveyard, I guess," Lewis said; "I've heard that they
+don't use gravestones.  Peaceful place, isn't it?"
+
+Her vivid face was instantly grave.  "Very peaceful!  Oh," she added,
+as they sat down in the shadow of a pine, "don't you sometimes want
+to lie down and sleep--deep down in the grass and flowers?"
+
+"Well," he confessed, "I don't believe it would be as interesting
+as walking round on top of them."
+
+She looked at him in despair.
+
+"Come, now," he defended himself, "you don't take much to peace
+yourself at home."
+
+"You don't understand!" she said, passionately.
+
+"There, there, little Tay," he said, smiling, and putting a soothing
+hand on hers; "I guess I do--after a fashion."
+
+It was very still; below them the valley had suddenly brimmed
+with sunshine that flickered and twinkled on the birch leaves
+or shimmered on sombre stretches of pine and spruce.  Close at hand,
+pennyroyal grew thick in the shadow of the wall; and just beyond,
+mullen candles cast slender bars of shade across the grass.
+The sunken graves and the lines of iron markers lay before them.
+
+"How quiet it is!" she said, in a whisper.
+
+"I guess I'll smoke," Lewis said, and scratched a match on his trousers.
+
+"How can you!" she protested; "it is profane!"
+
+He gave her an amused look, but lighted his cigar and smoked dreamily
+for a minute; then he drew a long breath.  "I was pretty tired," he said,
+and turned to glance back at the road.  A horse and cart were coming in at
+the open gate; the elderly driver, singing to himself, drew up abruptly
+at the sight of the two under the pine-tree, then drove toward them,
+the wheels of the cart jolting cheerfully over the cradling graves.
+He had a sickle in his hand, and as he clambered down from the seat,
+he said, with friendly curiosity:
+
+"You folks are out early, for the world's people."
+
+"Is this a graveyard?"  Athalia demanded, impetuously.
+
+"Yee," he said, smiling; "it's our burial-place; we're Shakers."
+
+"But why are there just the stakes--without names?"
+
+"Why should there be names?" he said, whimsically; "they have
+new names now."
+
+"Where is your community?  Can we go and visit it?"
+
+"Yee; but we're not much to see," he said; "just men and women, like you.
+Only we're happy.  I guess that's all the difference."
+
+"But what a difference!" she exclaimed; and Lewis smiled.
+
+"I've come up for pennyroyal," the Shaker explained, sociably; "it grows
+thick round here."
+
+"Tell me about the Shakers," Athalia pleaded.  "What do you believe?"
+
+"Well," he said, a simple shrewdness glimmering in his brown eyes,
+"if you go to the Trustees' House, down there in the valley,
+Eldress Hannah'll tell you all about us.  And the sisters have
+baskets and pretty truck to sell--things the world's people like.
+Go and ask the Eldress what we believe, and she'll show
+you the baskets."
+
+She turned eagerly to her husband.  "Never mind the ten-o'clock
+train, Lewis.  Let us go!"
+
+"We could take a later train, all right," he admitted, "but--"
+
+"Oh, PLEASE!" she entreated, joyously.  "We'll help you pick pennyroyal,"
+she added to the Shaker.
+
+But this he would not allow.  "I doubt you'd be careful enough,"
+he said, mildly; "Sister Lydia was the only female I ever knew
+who could pick herbs."
+
+"Do you get paid for the work you do?"  Athalia asked, practically.
+Lewis flushed at the boldness of such a question, but the
+old man chuckled.
+
+"Should I pay myself?" he asked.
+
+"You own everything in common, don't you?"  Lewis said.
+
+"Yee," said the Shaker; "we're all brothers and sisters.
+Nobody tries to get ahead of anybody else."
+
+"And you don't believe in marriage?"  Athalia asserted.
+
+"We are as the angels of God," he said, simply.
+
+He left them and began to sickle his herbs, with the cheerfully
+obvious purpose of escaping further interruption.
+
+Athalia instantly bubbled over with questions, but Lewis could
+tell her hardly more of the Shakers than she knew already.
+
+"No, it isn't free love," he said; "they're decent enough.
+They believe in general love, not particular, I suppose. . . . 'Thalia,
+do you think it's worth while to wait over a train just to
+see the settlement?"
+
+"Of course it is!  He said they were happy; I would like to see
+what kind of life makes people happy."
+
+He looked at the lighted end of his cigar and smiled,
+but he said nothing.  Afterward, as they followed the cart across
+the field and out into the road, Athalia asked the old herb-gatherer
+many questions about the happiness of the community life,
+which he answered patiently enough.  Once or twice he tried
+to draw into their talk the silent husband who walked at her side,
+but Lewis had nothing to say.  Only when some reference was made
+to one of the Prophecies did he look up in sudden interest.
+"You take that to mean the Judgment, do you?" he said.
+And for the rest of the walk to the settlement the two men discussed
+the point, the Shaker walking with one hand on the heavy shaft,
+for the support it gave him, and Lewis keeping step with him.
+
+At the foot of the hill the road widened into a grassy street,
+on both sides of which, under the elms and maples, were the
+community houses, big and substantial, but gauntly plain;
+their yellow paint, flaking and peeling here and there,
+shone clean and fresh in the sparkle of morning.  Except for a black
+cat whose fur glistened like jet, dozing on a white doorstep,
+the settlement, steeped in sunshine, showed no sign of life.
+There was a strange remoteness from time about the place;
+a sort of emptiness, and a silence that silenced even Athalia.
+
+"Where IS everybody?" she said, in a lowered voice; as she spoke,
+a child in a blue apron came from an open doorway and tugged a basket
+across the street.
+
+"Are there children here?"  Lewis asked, surprised; and their
+guide said, sadly:
+
+"Not as many as there ought to be.  The new school laws have made
+a great difference.  We've only got two.  Folks used to send 'em
+to us to bring up; oftentimes they stayed on after they were of age.
+Sister Lydia came that way.  Well, well, she tired of us, Lydy did,
+poor girl!  She went back into the world twenty years ago, now.
+And Sister Jane, she was a bound-out child, too," he rambled on;
+"she came here when she was six; she's seventy now."
+
+"What!"  Lewis exclaimed; "has she never known anything but--this?"
+
+His shocked tone did not disturb the old man.
+"Want to see my herb-house?" he said.  "Guess you'll find
+some of the sisters in the sorting-room. I'm Nathan Dale,"
+he added, courteously.
+
+They had come to the open door of a great, weather-beaten building,
+from whose open windows an aromatic breath wandered out into
+the summer air.  As they crossed the worn threshold, Athalia stopped
+and caught her breath in the overpowering scent of drying herbs;
+then they followed Brother Nathan up a shaky flight of steps to the loft.
+Here some elderly women, sitting on low benches, were sorting over
+great piles of herbs in silence--the silence, apparently, of peace
+and meditation.  Two of them were dressed like world's people,
+but the others wore small gray shoulder-capes buttoned to their chins,
+and little caps of white net stretched smoothly over wire frames;
+the narrow shirrings inside the frames fitted so close to their peaceful,
+wrinkled foreheads that no hair could be seen.
+
+"I wish I could sit and sort herbs!"  Athalia said, under her breath.
+
+Brother Nathan chuckled.  "For how long?" he asked; and then
+introduced her to the three workers, who greeted her calmly
+and went on sorting their herbs.  The loft was dark and cool;
+the window-frames, in which there were no sashes, opened wide
+on the still August fields and woods; the occasional brief words
+of the sorting-women seemed to drop into a pool of fragrant silence.
+The two visitors followed Brother Nathan down the room between
+piles of sorted herbs, and out into the sunshine again.
+Athalia drew a breath of ecstasy.
+
+"It's all so beautifully tranquil!" she whispered, looking about
+her with blue, excited eyes.
+
+"Tay and tranquillity!"  Lewis said, with an amused laugh.
+
+But as they went along the grassy street this sense
+of tranquillity closed about them like a palpable peace.
+Now and then they stopped and spoke to some one--always an
+elderly person; and in each old face the experiences that life
+writes in unerasable lines about eyes and lips were hidden
+by a veil of calmness that was curiously unhuman.
+
+"It isn't canny, exactly," Lewis told his wife, in a low voice.
+But she did not seem to hear him.  She asked many questions
+of Eldress Hannah, who had taken them in charge, and once
+or twice she burst into impetuous appreciation of the idea
+of brotherhood, and even of certain theological principles--
+which last diverted her husband very much.  Eldress Hannah showed
+them the dairy, and the work-room, and all there was to see,
+with a patient hospitality that kept them at an infinite distance.
+She answered Lewis's questions about the community with
+a sad directness.
+
+"Yee; there are not many of us now.  The world's people say we're
+dying out.  But the Lord will preserve the remnant to redeem
+the world, young man.  Yee; when they come in from the world
+they cast their possessions into the whole; we own nothing,
+for ourselves.  Nay; we don't have many come.  Brother William
+was the last.  Why did he come?"  She looked coldly at Athalia,
+who had asked the question.  "Because he saw the way to peace.
+He'd had strife enough in the world.  Yee," she admitted, briefly,
+"some fall from grace, and leave us.  The last was Lydia.
+She was one of our children, and I thought she was of the chosen.
+But she was only thirty when she fell away, and you can't
+expect wisdom at that age.  That was nearly twenty years ago.
+When she has tasted the dregs of the world she will come back to us--
+if she lives," Eldress Hannah ended.
+
+Athalia listened breathlessly, her rapt, unhumorous eyes fixed
+on Eldress Hannah's still face.  Now and then she asked a question,
+and once cried out that, after all, why wasn't it the way to live?
+Peace and self-sacrifice and love!  "Oh," she said,
+turning to her husband, "can't you feel the attraction of it?
+I should think even you could feel it!"
+
+"I think I feel it--after a fashion," he said, mildly; "I think
+I have always felt the attraction of community life."
+
+Afterward, when they had left all this somnolent peace and begun
+the long walk back to the station, he explained what he meant:
+"I couldn't say so before the Eldress, but of course there are times
+when anybody can feel the charm of getting rid of personal responsibility--
+and that is what community life really means.  It's the relief
+of being a little cog in a big machine; in fact, the very attraction
+of it is a sort of temptation, to my way of looking at it.
+But it--well, it made me sleepy," he confessed.
+
+For once his wife had no reply.  She was very quiet on that return
+journey in the cars, and in the days that followed she kept referring
+to their visit with a persistence that surprised her husband.
+She thought the net caps were beautiful; she thought the exquisite
+cleanness of everything was like a perfume--"the perfume of a wild rose!"
+she said, ecstatically.  She thought the having everything in common
+was the way to live.  "And just think how peaceful it is!"
+
+"Well, yes," Lewis said; "I suppose it's peaceful--after a fashion.
+Anything that isn't alive is peaceful."
+
+"But their idea of brotherhood is the highest kind of life!"
+
+"The only fault I have to find with it is that it isn't human,"
+he said, mildly.  He had no desire to prove or disprove anything;
+Athalia was looking better, just because she was interested
+in something, and that was enough for Lewis.  When she proposed to read
+a book on Shakerism aloud, he fell into her mood with what was,
+for him, enthusiasm; he declared he would like nothing better,
+and he put his daily paper aside without a visible regret.
+
+"Well," he admitted, "I must say there's more to it than I supposed.
+They've studied the Prophecies; that's evident.  And they're not narrow
+in their belief.  They're really Unitarians."
+
+"Narrow?" she said--"they are as wide as heaven itself!
+And, oh, the peace of it!"
+
+"But they are NOT human," he would insist, smiling; "no marriage--
+that's not human, little Tay."
+
+It was not until two months later that he began to feel
+vaguely uneasy.  "Yes; it's interesting," he admitted;
+"but nobody in these days would want to be a Shaker."
+To which she replied, boldly, "Why not?"
+
+That was all, but it was enough.  Lewis Hall's face suddenly sobered.
+He had not stumbled along behind her in all her emotional experiences
+without learning to read the guide-posts to her thought.
+"I hope she'll get through with it soon," he said to himself,
+with a worried frown; "it isn't wholesome for a mind like 'Thalia's
+to dwell on this kind of thing."
+
+It was in November that she broke to him that she had written
+Eldress Hannah to ask if she might come and visit the community,
+and had been answered "Yee."
+
+Lewis was silent with consternation; he went out to the sawmill
+and climbed up into the loft to think it all out alone.
+Should he forbid it?  He knew that was nonsense; in the first place,
+his conception of the relation of husband and wife did not include
+that kind of thing; but more than that, opposition would, he said
+to himself, "push her in."  Not into Shakerism; "'Thalia couldn't
+be a Shaker to save her life," he thought, with an involuntary smile;
+but into an excited discontent with her comfortable, prosaic life.
+No; definite opposition to the visit must not be thought of--but he must
+try and persuade her not to go.  How?  What plea could he offer?
+His own loneliness without her he could not bring himself to speak of;
+he shrank from taking what seemed to him an advantage.
+He might urge that she would find it cold and uncomfortable in those old
+frame houses high up on the hills; or that it would be bad for her
+health to take the rather wearing journey at this time of year.
+But he knew too well how little effect any such prudent counsels
+would have.  The very fact that her interest had lasted for more
+than three months showed that it had really struck roots into
+her mind, and mere prudence would not avail much.  Still, he would
+urge prudence; then, if she was determined, she must go.
+"She'll get sick of it in a fortnight," he said; but for the present
+he must let her have her head, even if she was making a mistake.
+She had a right to have her head, he reminded himself--"but I must
+tell those people to keep her warm, she takes cold so easily."
+
+He got up and looked out of the window; below, in the race,
+there was a jam of logs, and the air was keen
+with the pungent smell of sawdust and new boards.
+The whir and thud of the machinery down-stairs sent a faint
+quiver through the planks under his feet.  "The mill will net
+a good profit this year," he said to himself, absently.
+"'Thalia can have pretty nearly anything she wants."
+And even as he said it he had a sudden, vague misgiving:
+if she didn't have everything she wanted, perhaps she would
+be happier?  But the idea was too new and too subtle to follow up,
+so the result of that troubled hour in the mill-chamber was
+only that he made no very resolute objection to Athalia's
+acceptance of Eldress Hannah's permission to come.
+It had been given grudgingly enough.
+
+
+The family were gathered in the sitting-room; they had had their supper--
+the eight elderly women and the three elderly men, all that were left
+of the community.  The room had the austere and shining cleanness
+which Athalia had called a perfume, but it was full of homely comfort.
+A blue-and-white rag carpet in the centre left a border of bare floor,
+painted pumpkin-yellow; there was a glittering airtight stove with
+isinglass windows that shone like square, red eyes; a gay patchwork
+cushion in the seat of a rocking-chair was given up to the black cat,
+whose sleek fur glistened in the lamplight.  Three of the sisters
+knitted silently; two others rocked back and forth, their tired,
+idle hands in their laps, their eyes closed; the other three yawned,
+and spoke occasionally between themselves of their various tasks.
+Brother Nathan read his weekly FARMER; Brother William turned over
+the leaves of a hymn-book and appeared to count them with noiseless,
+moving lips; Brother George cut pictures out of the back of
+a magazine, yawning sometimes, and looking often at his watch.
+Into this quietness Eldress Hannah's still voice came:
+
+"I have heard from Lydia again."  There was a faint stir, but no
+one spoke.  "The Lord is dealing with her," Eldress Hannah said;
+"she is in great misery."
+
+Brother George nodded.  "That is good; He works in a mysterious way--
+she's real miserable, is she?  Well, well; that's good.
+The mercies of the Lord are everlasting," he ended, in a satisfied voice,
+and began to read again.
+
+"Amen!--amen!" said Brother William, vaguely.
+
+"Poor Lydy!"  Brother Nathan murmured.
+
+"And I had another letter," the Eldress proceeded,
+"from that young woman who came here in August--Athalia Hall;
+do you remember?--she asked two questions to the minute!
+She wants to visit us."
+
+Brother Nathan looked at her over his spectacles, and one of the sisters
+opened her eyes.
+
+"I don't see why she should," Eldress Hannah added.
+
+Two of the old brothers nodded agreement.
+
+"The curiosity of the world's people does not help their souls,"
+said one of the knitters.
+
+"She thinks we walk in the Way to Peace," said the Eldress.
+
+"Yee; we do," said Brother George.
+
+"Shall I tell her 'nay'?" the Eldress questioned, calmly.
+
+"Yee," said Brother George; and the dozing sisters murmured "Yee."
+
+"Wait," said Brother Nathan; "her husband--HE has something to him.
+Let her come."
+
+"But if she visited us, how would that affect him?"
+Eldress Hannah asked, surprised into faint animation.
+
+"If she was moved to stay it would affect him," Brother Nathan said,
+dryly; "he would come, too, and there are very few of us left, Eldress.
+He would be a great gain."
+
+There was a long silence.  Brother William's gray head sagged on
+his shoulder, and the hymn-book slipped from his gnarled old hands.
+The knitting sisters began, one after another, to stab their needles
+into their balls of gray yarn and roll their work up in their aprons.
+
+"It's getting late, Eldress," one of them said, and glanced
+at the clock.
+
+"Then I'll tell her she may come?" said Eldress Hannah, reluctantly.
+
+"He can make the wrath of man to praise Him," Brother Nathan
+encouraged her.
+
+"Yee; but I never heard that He could make the foolishness of woman
+do it," the old woman said, grimly.
+
+As the brothers and sisters parted at the door of the sitting-room
+Brother Nathan plucked at the Eldress's sleeve; "Is she
+very wretched--Lydia?  Where is she now, Eldress?  Poor Lydy!
+poor little Lydy!"
+
+
+The fortnight of Athalia's absence wore greatly upon
+her husband.  Apprehension lurked in the back of his mind.
+In the mill, or out on the farm, or when he sat down among
+his shabby, old, calf-skin books, he was assailed by the memory
+of all her various fancies during their married life.
+Some of them were no more remarkable or unexpected than this
+interest in Shakerism.  He began to be slowly frightened.
+Suppose she should take it into her head--?
+
+When her fortnight was nearly up and he was already deciding whether,
+when he drove over to Depot Corners to meet her, he would take Ginny's
+colt or the new mare, a letter came to say she was going to stay
+a week longer.
+
+"I believe," she wrote--her very pen, in the frantic down-hill slope
+of her lines, betraying the excitement of her thoughts--"I believe
+that for the first time in my life I have found my God!"  The letter
+was full of dashes and underlining, and on the last page there was
+a blistered splash into which the ink had run a little on the edges.
+
+Lewis Hall's heart contracted with an almost physical pang.
+"I must go and get her right off," he said; "this thing is serious!"
+And yet, after a wakeful night, he decided, with the extraordinary
+respect for her individuality so characteristic of the man--
+a respect that may be called foolish or divine, as you happen
+to look at it--he decided not to go.  If he dragged her away
+from the Shakers against her will, what would be gained?
+"I must give her her head, and let her see for herself that it's
+all moonshine," he told himself, painfully, over and over;
+"my seeing it won't accomplish anything."  But he counted
+the hours until she would come home.
+
+When she came, as soon as he saw her walking along the platform looking
+for him while he stood with his hand on Ginny's colt's bridle, even before
+she had spoken a single word, even then he knew what had happened--
+the uplifted radiance of her face announced it.
+
+But she did not tell him at once.  On the drive home, in the dark
+December afternoon, he was tense with apprehension; once or twice
+he ventured some questions about the Shakers, but she put them aside
+with a curious gentleness, her voice a little distant and monotonous;
+her words seemed to come only from the surface of her mind.
+When he lifted her out of the sleigh at their own door he felt
+a subtle resistance in her whole body; and when, in the hall,
+he put his arms about her and tried to kiss her, she drew back
+sharply and said:
+
+"No!--PLEASE!"  Then, as they stood there in the chilly entry, she burst
+into a passionate explanation:  she had been convicted and converted!
+She had found her Saviour!  She--
+
+"There, there, little Tay," he broke in, sadly; "supper is ready, dear."
+He heard a smothered exclamation--that it was smothered showed how
+completely she was immersed in a new experience, one of the details
+of which was the practice of self-control.
+
+But, of course, that night they had it out. . . . When they came into
+the sitting-room after supper she flung the news into his pale face:
+_she wished to join the Shakers_.  But she must have his consent,
+she added, impatiently, because otherwise the Shakers would not
+let her come.
+
+"That's the only thing I don't agree with them about,"
+she said, candidly; "I don't think they ought to make
+anything so solemn contingent upon the 'consent' of any other
+human being.  But, of course, Lewis, it's only a form.
+I have left you in spirit, and that is what counts.
+So I told them I knew you would consent."
+
+She looked at him with those blue, ecstatic eyes,
+so oblivious to his pain that for a moment a sort of impersonal
+amazement at such self-centredness held him silent.
+But after the first shock he spoke with a slow fluency that pierced
+Athalia's egotism and stirred an answering astonishment in her.
+His weeks of vague misgiving, deepening into keen apprehension,
+had given him protests and arguments which, although they
+never convinced her, silenced her temporarily.
+She had never known her husband in this character.
+Of course, she had been prepared for objections and entreaties,
+but sound arguments and stern disapproval confused and annoyed her.
+She had supposed he would tell her she would break his heart;
+instead, he said, calmly, that she hadn't the head for Shakerism.
+
+"You've got to be very reasonable, 'Thalia, to stand
+a community life, or else you've got to be an awful fool.
+You are neither one nor the other."
+
+"I believe their doctrines," she declared, "and I would die
+for a religious belief.  But I don't suppose you ever felt
+that you could die for a thing!"
+
+"I think I have--after a fashion," he said, mildly; "but dying
+for a thing is easy; it's living for it that's hard.
+You couldn't keep it up, Athalia; you couldn't live for it."
+
+Well, of course, that night was only the beginning.  The days and weeks
+that followed were full of argument, of entreaty, of determination.
+Perhaps if he had laughed at her. . . . But it is dangerous
+to laugh at unhumorous people, for if they get angry all is lost.
+So he never laughed, nor in all their talks did he ever reproach
+her for not loving him.  Once only his plea was personal--
+and even then it was only indirectly so.
+
+"Athalia," he said, "there's only one kind of pain in this world
+that never gets cured.  It's the pain that comes when you remember
+that you've made somebody who loved you unhappy--not for a principle,
+but for your own pleasure.  I know that pain, and I know how it lasts.
+Once I did something, just to please myself, that hurt mother's feelings.
+I'd give my right hand if I hadn't done it.  It's twenty-two years ago,
+and I wasn't more than a boy, and she forgave me and forgot all about it.
+I have never forgotten it.  I wish to God I could!  'Thalia, I don't
+want you to suffer that kind of pain."
+
+She saw the implication rather than the warning, and she
+burst out, angrily, that she wasn't doing this for "pleasure";
+she was doing it for principle!  It was for the salvation
+of her soul!
+
+"Athalia," he said, solemnly, "the salvation of our souls depends
+on doing our duty."
+
+"Ah!" she broke in, triumphantly, "out of your own lips:--
+isn't it my duty to do what seems to me right?"
+
+He considered a minute.  "Well, yes; I suppose the most valuable
+example any one can set is to do what he or she believes
+to be right.  It may be wrong, but that is not the point.
+We must do what we conceive to be our duty.  Only, we've got
+to be sure, Tay, in deciding upon duty, in deciding what is right,--
+we've got to be sure that self-interest is eliminated.
+I don't believe anybody can decide absolutely on what is right
+without eliminating self."
+
+She frowned at this impatiently; its perfect fairness meant
+nothing to her.
+
+"You promised to be my wife," he went on with a curious sternness; "it is
+obviously 'right,' and so it is your first duty to keep your promise--
+at least, so long as my conduct does not absolve you from it."
+Then he added, hastily, with careful justice:  "Of course, I'm not talking
+about promises to love; they are nonsense.  Nobody can promise to love.
+Promises to do our duty are all that count."
+
+That was the only reproach he made--if it was a reproach--
+for his betrayed love.  It was just as well.  Discussion on this
+subject between husbands and wives is always futile.  Nothing was
+ever accomplished by it; and yet, in spite of the verdict of time
+and experience that nothing is gained, over and over the jealous man,
+and still more frequently the jealous woman, protests against a lost love
+with a bitterness that kills pity and turns remorse into antagonism.
+But Lewis Hall made no reproaches.  Perhaps Athalia missed them;
+perhaps, under her spiritual passion, she was piqued that earthly
+passion was so readily silenced.  But, if she was, she did not know it.
+She was entirely sincere and intensely happy in a new experience.
+It was a long winter of argument;--and then suddenly, in early April,
+the break came. . . .
+
+"I WILL go; I have a right to save my soul!"
+
+And he said, very simply, "Well, Athalia, then I'll go, too."
+
+"You?  But you don't believe--" And almost in the Bible words he answered
+her, "No; but where you go, I will go; where you live, I will live."
+And then, a moment later, "I promised to cleave to you, little Tay."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE uprooting of their life took a surprisingly short time.
+In all those dark months of argument Lewis Hall had been quietly
+making plans for this final step, and such preparation betrayed
+his knowledge from the first of the hopelessness of his struggle--
+indeed, the struggle had only been loyalty to a lost cause.
+His calm assent to his wife's ultimatum left her a little blank;
+but in the immediate excitement of removal, in the thrill of
+martyrdom that came with publicity, the blankness did not last.
+What the publicity was to her husband she could not understand.
+He received the protests of his family in stolid silence;
+when the venturesome great-aunt told him what she thought of him,
+he smiled; when his brother informed him that he was a fool, he said
+he shouldn't wonder.  When the minister, egged on by distracted
+Hall relatives, remonstrated, he replied, respectfully, that he was
+doing what he believed to be his duty, "and if it seems to be a duty,
+I can't help myself; you see that, don't you?" he said, anxiously.
+But that was practically all he found to say; for the most part
+he was silent.  Athalia, in her absorption, probably had not
+the slightest idea of the agonies of mortification which he suffered;
+her imagination told her, truly enough, what angry relatives
+and pleasantly horrified neighbors said about her, and the abuse
+exhilarated her very much; but her imagination stopped there.
+It did not give her the family's opinion of her husband; it did
+not whisper the gossip of the grocery-store and the post-office;
+it did not repeat the chuckles or echo the innuendoes:
+
+"So Squire Hall's wife's got tired of him?  Rather live
+with the Shakers than him!"  "I like Hall, but I haven't
+any sympathy with him," the doctor said; "what in thunder did
+he let her go gallivanting off to visit the Shakers for?
+Might have known a female like Mrs. Hall'd get a bee in her bonnet.
+He ought to have kept her at home.  _I_ would have.
+I wouldn't have had any such nonsense in my family!
+Well, for an obstinate man (and he IS obstinate, you know),
+the squire, when it comes to his wife, has no more backbone
+than a wet string."
+
+"Wonder if there's anything under it all?" came the sly insinuation
+of gossip; "wonder if she hasn't got something besides the Shakers
+up her sleeve?  You wait!"
+
+If Athalia's imagination spared her these comments,
+Lewis's unimaginative common sense supplied them.
+He knew what other men and husbands were saying about him;
+what servants and gossip and friends insinuated to one another,
+and set his jaw in silence.  He made no excuse and no explanation.
+Why should he?  The facts spoke.  His wife did prefer the Shakers
+to her husband and her home.  To have interfered with her purpose
+by any plea of his personal unhappiness, or by any threat
+of an appeal to law, or even by refusing to give the "consent"
+essential to her admission, would not have altered these facts.
+As for his reasons for going with her, they would not have
+enhanced his dignity in the eyes of the men who wouldn't
+have had any such nonsense in their families:  he must be
+near her to see that she did not suffer too much hardship,
+and to bring her home when she was ready to come.
+
+In those days of tearing his life up by the roots the silent
+man was just a little more silent, that was all.  But the fact
+was burning into his consciousness:  he couldn't keep his wife!
+That was what they said, and that was the truth.
+It seemed to him as if his soul blushed at his helplessness.
+But his face was perfectly stolid.  He told Athalia, passively,
+that he had rented the house and mill to Henry Davis;
+that he had settled half his capital upon her, so that she would
+have some money to put into the common treasury of the community;
+then he added that he had taken a house for himself near
+the settlement, and that he would hire out to the Shakers
+when they were haying, or do any farm-work that he could get.
+
+"I can take care of myself, I guess," he said; "I used
+to camp out when I was a boy, and I can cook pretty well,
+mother always said."  He looked at her wistfully; but the
+uncomfortable-ness of such an arrangement did not strike her.
+In her desire for a new emotion, her eagerness to FEEL--
+that eagerness which is really a sensuality of the mind--
+she was too absorbed in her own self-chosen hardships to think
+of his; which were not entirely self-chosen.
+
+
+"I think I can find enough to do," he said; "the Shakers need
+an able-bodied man; they only have those three old men."
+
+"How do you know that?" she asked, quickly.
+
+"I've been to see them twice this winter," he said.
+
+"Why!" she said, amazed, "you never told me!"
+
+"I don't tell you everything nowadays, 'Thalia," he said, briefly.
+
+In those two visits to the Shakers, Lewis Hall had been treated with
+great delicacy; there had been no effort to proselytize, and equally
+there had been no triumphing over the accession of his wife; in fact,
+Athalia was hardly referred to, except when they told him that they would
+take good care of her, and when Brother Nathan volunteered a brief summary
+of Shaker doctrines--"so as you can feel easy about her," he explained:
+"We believe that Christ was the male principle in Deity, and Mother Ann
+was the female principle.  And we believe in confession of our sins,
+and communion with the dead--spiritualism, they call it nowadays--
+and in the virgin life.  Shakers don't marry, nor give in marriage.
+And we have all things in common.  That's all, friend.  You see,
+we don't teach anything that Christ didn't teach, so she won't learn
+any evil from us.  Simple, ain't it.?"
+
+"Well, yes, after a fashion," Lewis Hall said; "but it isn't human."
+
+And Brother Nathan smiled mysti-cally. "Maybe that isn't against it,
+in the long run," he said.
+
+
+They came to the community in the spring twilight.
+The brothers and sisters had assembled to meet the convert,
+and to give a neighborly hand to the silent man who was to live by
+himself in a little, gray, shingled house down on Lonely Lake Road.
+It was a supreme moment to Athalia.  She had expected an intense
+parting from her husband when they left their own house;
+and she was ready to press into her soul the poignant
+thorn of grief, not only because it would make her FEEL,
+but because it would emphasize in her own mind the divine
+self-sacrifice which she wanted to believe she was making.
+But when the moment came to close the door of the old home
+behind them, her husband was cruelly commonplace about it--for poor
+Lewis had no more drama in him than a kindly Newfoundland dog!
+He was full of practical cares for his tenant, and he stopped even
+while he was turning the key in the lock, to "fuss," as Athalia said,
+over some last details of the transfer of the sawmill.
+Athalia could not tear herself from arms that placidly consented
+to her withdrawal; so there had been no rending ecstasies.
+In consequence, on the journey up to the community she was
+a little morose, a little irritable even, just as the drunkard
+is apt to be irritable when sobriety is unescapable. . . .
+But at the door of the Family House she had her opportunity:
+she said, dramatically, "Good-night--_Brother Lewis_."
+It was an entirely sincere moment.  Dramatic natures are not
+often insincere, they are only unreal.
+
+As for her husband, he said, calmly, "Good-night, dear,"
+and trudged off in the cool May dusk down Lonely Lake Road.
+He found the door of the house on the latch, and a little
+fire glowing in the stove; Brother Nathan had seen
+to that, and had left some food on the table for him.
+But in spite of the old man's friendly foresight the house
+had all the desolation of confusion; in the kitchen there
+were two or three cases of books, broken open but not unpacked,
+a trunk and a carpet-bag, and some bundles of groceries;
+they had been left by the expressman on tables and chairs
+and on the floor, so that the solitary man had to do some
+lifting and unpacking before he could sit down in his
+loneliness to eat the supper Brother Nathan had provided.
+He looked about to see where he would put up shelves for
+his books, and as he did so the remembrance of his quiet,
+shabby old study came to him, almost like a blow.
+
+"Well," he said to himself, "this won't be for so very long.
+We'll be back again in a year, I guess.  Poor little Tay!  I shouldn't
+wonder if it was six months.  I wonder, can I buy Henry Davis off,
+if she wants to go back in six months?"
+
+And yet, in spite of his calm understanding of the situation,
+the wound burned.  As he went about putting things into some
+semblance of order, he paused once and looked hard into
+the fire. . . . When she did want to go back--let it be in six
+months or six weeks or six days--would things be the same?
+Something had been done to the very structure and fabric
+of their life.  "Can it ever be the same?" he said to himself;
+and then he passed his hand over his eyes, in a bewildered
+way--"Will I be the same?" he said.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+SUMMER at the Shaker settlement, lying in the green cup of the hills,
+was very beautiful.  The yellow houses along the grassy street
+drowsed in the sunshine, and when the wind stirred the maple leaves
+one could see the distant sparkle of the lake.  Athalia had a fancy,
+in the warm twilights, for walking down Lonely Lake Road, that jolted
+over logs and across gullies and stopped abruptly at the water's edge.
+She had to pass Lewis's house on the way, and if he saw her he would
+call out to her, cheerfully,
+
+"Hullo, 'Thalia! how are you, dear?"
+
+And she, with prim intensity, would reply, "Good-evening, BROTHER Lewis."
+
+If one of the sisters was with her, they would stop and speak to him;
+otherwise she passed him by in such an eager consciousness of her
+part that he smiled--and then sighed.  When she had a companion,
+Lewis and the other Shakeress would gossip about the weather
+or the haying, and Lewis would have the chance to say:
+"You're not overworking, 'Thalia?  You're not tired?"  While Athalia,
+in her net cap and her gray shoulder cape buttoned close up to her chin,
+would dismiss the anxious affection with a peremptory "Of course not!
+I have bread to eat you know not of, Brother Lewis."
+Then she would add, didactically, some word of dogma or admonition.
+
+But she had not much time to give to Brother Lewis's salvation--
+she was so busy in adjusting herself to her new life.
+Its picturesque details fascinated her--the cap, the brevity of speech,
+the small mannerisms, the occasional and very reserved mysticism,
+absorbed her so that she thought very little of her husband.
+She saw him occasionally on those walks down to the lake,
+or when, after a day in the fields with the three old Shaker men,
+Brother Nathan brought him home to supper.
+
+"We Shakers are given to hospitality," he said; "we're always
+looking for the angel we are going to entertain unawares.
+Come along home with us, Lewis."  And Lewis would plod up
+the hill and take his turn at the tin washbasin, and then
+file down the men's side of the stairs to the dining-room,
+where he and the three old brothers sat at one table,
+and Athalia and the eight sisters sat at the other table.
+After supper he had the chance to see Athalia and to make
+sure that she was not looking tired.  "You didn't take cold
+yesterday, 'Thalia?  I saw you were out in the rain," he would say.
+And she, always a little embarrassed at such personal interest,
+would reply, primly, "I am not at all tired, Brother Lewis."
+Nathan used to walk home with his guest, and sometimes they
+talked of work that must be done, and sometimes touched on more
+unpractical things--those spiritual manifestations which at
+rare intervals centred in Brother William and were the hope
+of the whole community.  For who could tell when the old
+man's incoherent muttering would break into the clear speech
+of one of those Heavenly Visitants who, in the early days,
+had descended upon the Shakers, and then, for some divine
+and deeply mysterious reason, withdrawn from such pure channels
+of communication, and manifested themselves in the world,--
+but through base and sordid natures.  Poor, vague Brother William,
+who saw visions and dreamed dreams, was, in this community,
+the torch that held a smouldering spark of the divine fire,
+and when, in a cataleptic state, his faint intelligence fluttered
+back into some dim depths of personality, and he moaned
+and muttered, using awful names with babbling freedom,
+Brother Nathan and the rest listened with pathetic eagerness
+for a _"thus saith the Lord,"_ which should enflame the gray
+embers of Shakerism and give light to the whole world!
+When Nathan talked of these things he would add, with a sigh,
+that he hoped some day William would be inspired to tell them something
+more of Sister Lydia:  "Once William said, 'Coming, coming.'
+_I_ think it meant Lydia; but Eldress thought it was Athalia;
+it was just before she came."  Brother Nathan sighed.
+"I wish it had meant Lydy," he said, simply.
+
+If Lewis wished it had meant Lydy, he did not say so.
+And, indeed, he said very little upon any subject;
+Brother Nathan did most of the talking.
+
+"I fled from the City of Destruction when I was thirty,"
+he told Lewis; "that was just a year before Sister Lydy left us.
+Poor Lydy! poor Lydy!" he said.  "Oh, yee, _I_ know the world.
+I know it, my boy!  Do you?"
+
+"Why, after a fashion," Lewis said; and then he asked, suddenly, "Why did
+you turn Shaker, Nathan?"
+
+"Well, I got hold of a Shaker book that set me thinking.
+Sister Lydia gave it to me.  I met Sister Lydia when she
+had come down to the place I lived to sell baskets.
+And she was interested in my salvation, and gave me the book.
+Then I got to figuring out the Prophecies, and I saw Shakerism
+fulfilled them; and then I began to see that when you don't
+own anything yourself you can't worry about your property;
+well, that clinched me, I guess.  Poor Sister Lydia, she didn't
+abide in grace herself," he ended, sadly.
+
+"I should have thought you would have been sorry then,
+that you--" Lewis began, but checked himself.  "How about"--
+he said, and stopped to clear his voice, which broke huskily;--
+"how about love between man and woman?  Husband and wife?"
+
+"Marriage is honorable," Brother Nathan conceded; "Shakers don't
+despise marriage.  But they like to see folks grow out of it
+into something better, like--like your wife, maybe."
+
+"Well, your doctrine would put an end to the world,"
+Lewis said, smiling.
+
+"I guess," said Brother Nathan, dryly, "there ain't any immediate
+danger of the world coming to an end."
+
+"I'd like to see that book," Lewis said, when they parted
+at the pasture-bars where a foot-path led down the hill
+to his own house.
+
+And that night Brother Nathan had an eager word for the family.
+"He's asked for a book!" he said.  The Eldress smiled doubtfully,
+but Athalia, with a rapturous upward look, said,
+
+"May the Lord guide him!" then added, practically, "It won't
+amount to anything.  He thinks Shakerism isn't human."
+
+"That's not against it, that's not against it!"
+Nathan declared, smiling; "I've told him so a dozen times!"
+
+But Athalia was so happy that first year, and so important,
+that she did not often concern herself with the welfare of the man
+who had been her husband.  Instead--it was early in April--
+he concerned himself with hers; he tried, tentatively, to see
+if it wasn't almost time for Athalia "to get through with it."
+Of course, afterward, Sister Athalia realized, with chagrin,
+that this attempt was only a forerunner of the fever that
+was developing, which in a few days was to make him a very sick man.
+But for the moment his question seemed to her a temptation
+of the devil, and, of course, resisted temptation made her faith
+stronger than ever.
+
+It was a deliciously cold spring night; Lewis had drawn the table, with
+his books on it, close to the fire to try to keep warm, but he shivered,
+even while his shoulders scorched, and somehow he could not keep his mind
+on the black, rectangular characters of the Hebrew page before him.
+He had been interested in Brother Nathan's explanation of Hosea's
+forecasting of Shakerism, and he had admitted to himself that,
+if Nathan was correct, there would be something to be said for Shakerism.
+The idea made him vaguely uneasy, because, that "something" might be
+so conclusive, that--But he could not face such a possibility.
+
+He wanted to dig at the text, so that he might refute Nathan;
+but somehow that night he was too dull to refute anybody, and by-and-by
+he pushed the black-lettered page aside, and, crouching over the fire,
+held out his hands to the blaze.  He thought, vaguely, of the big
+fireplace in the old study, and suddenly, in the chilly numbness
+of his mind, he saw it--with such distinctness that he was startled.
+Then, a moment later, it changed into the south chamber that
+had been his mother's bedroom--he could even detect the faint
+scent of rose-geranium that always hung about her; he noticed
+that the green shutters on the west windows were bowed, and from
+between them a line of sunshine fell across the matting on the floor
+and touched the four-poster that had a chintz spread and valance.
+How well he knew the faded roses and the cockatoos on that old chintz!
+Over there by the window he had caught her crying that time he had
+hurt her feelings, "just for his own pleasure"; the old stab of this
+thought pierced through the feverish mists and touched the quick.
+He struggled numbly with the visualization of fever, brushing his
+hot hand across his eyes and trying to see which was real--
+the geranium-sweet south chamber or the chilly house on Lonely Lake Road.
+Athalia had given him pain in that same way--just for her own pleasure.
+Poor little Tay!  He was afraid it would hurt her, some day, when she
+realized it; well, when she came to herself, when she got through her
+playing at Shakerism, he must not let her know how great the pain
+had been; she would suffer too much if she should understand his misery:
+and Athalia didn't bear suffering well. . . . But how long she had been
+getting over Shakerism!  He had thought it would only last six months,
+and here it was a year!  Well, if Nathan's reading of the Prophecies
+was right, then Athalia would never get over it.  She ought never
+to get over it.  Then what would become of the farm and the sawmill?
+And instantly everything was unreal again; he could hear the hum
+of the driving-wheel and the screech of the saw tearing through a log;
+how fragrant the fresh planks were, and the great heaps of sawdust--
+but the noise made his head ache; and--and the fire didn't seem hot. . . .
+
+It was in one of those moments when the mists thinned, and he knew that
+he was shivering over the stove instead of basking in the sunshine in his
+mother's room that smelled of rose-geranium leaves, that Athalia came in.
+She looked conscious and confused, full of a delightful embarrassment
+at being for once alone with him.  The color was deep on her cheeks,
+and her eyes were starry.
+
+"Eldress asked me to bring your mail down to you, Brother Lewis,"
+she said.
+
+"Thalia!" he said; "I am so glad to see you, dear; I--I seem
+to be rather used up, somehow."  The mists had quite
+cleared away, but a violent headache made his words stumble.
+"I was just wondering, Thalia--don't you think you might go
+home now?  You've had a whole year of it--and I really ought
+to go home--the mill--"
+
+"Why, Lewis Hall!  What do you mean!" she said,
+forgetting her part in her indignation.  "I am a Shakeress.
+You've no right to speak so to me."
+
+He blinked at her through the blur of pain.  "I wish you'd
+stay with me, Athalia, I've got a--a sort of--headache.
+Never mind about being a Shakeress just for to-night. It would
+be such a comfort to have you."
+
+But Athalia, with a horrified look, had left him.
+She fled home in the darkness with burning cheeks; she debated
+with herself whether she should tell Eldress how her husband--
+no, Brother Lewis--had tried to "tempt" her back to him.
+In her excitement at this lure of the devil she even wondered
+whether Lewis had pretended that he was ill, to induce
+her to stay with him?  But even Athalia's imagination could
+not compass such a thought of Lewis for more than a moment,
+so she only told the Eldress that Brother Lewis had "tried
+to persuade her to go back to the world with him."
+The Lord had defended her, she said, excitedly, and she had
+forbidden him to speak to her!
+
+Eldress Hannah looked perplexed.  "That's not like Lewis.
+I wonder--" But she did not say what she wondered.  Instead, she went
+early in the morning down Lonely Lake Road to Lewis's house.
+The poor fellow was entirely in the mists by that time,
+shivering and burning and quite unconscious, saying over and over,
+"She wouldn't stay; she wouldn't stay."
+
+"'Lure her back,'" said Eldress Hannah, with a snort.  "Poor boy!
+It's good riddance for him."
+
+But Eldress Hannah stayed, and Brother Nathan joined her,
+and for many days the little community was shaken with real anxiety,
+for they had all come to love the solitary, waiting husband.
+Athalia, abashed, but still cherishing the dear insult of having
+been tempted, took what little part Eldress allowed her in
+the care of the sick man; but in the six or seven weeks of his
+illness Brother Nathan and the Eldress were his devoted nurses,
+and by-and-by a genuine friendship grew up between them.
+Old Eldress Hannah's shrewd good-humor was as wholesome as a sound
+winter apple, and Nathan had a gayety Lewis had never suspected.
+The old man grew very confidential in those days of Lewis's convalescence;
+he showed his simple heart with a generosity that made
+the sick man's lip tighten once or twice and his eyes blur;--
+Lewis came to know all about Sister Lydia; indeed, he knew more
+than the old man knew himself.  When the invalid grew stronger,
+Nathan wrestled with him over the Prophecies, and Lewis studied them
+and the other foundation-stones of the Shaker faith with a constantly
+increasing anxiety.  "Because," he said, with a nervous blink,
+"if you ARE right--" But he left the sentence unfinished.
+Once he said, with a feeble passion--for he was still very weak--"I
+tell you, Nathan, it isn't human!" and then added, under his breath,
+"but God knows whether that's not in its fa-vor."
+
+
+When he was quite well again he was plainly preoccupied.
+He pored over the Prophecies with a concentration that made
+him blind even to Athalia's tired looks.  Once, when some one
+said in his presence, "Sister 'Thalia is working too hard,"
+he blinked at her in an absent way before the old,
+anxious attention awoke in his eyes.
+
+Athalia tossed her head and said, "Brother Lewis has his own
+affairs to think of, I guess!"
+
+And he said, eagerly:  "Yes, 'Thalia; I have been thinking--
+Some day I'll tell you.  But not yet."
+
+"Oh, I haven't time to pry into other people's thoughts,"
+she said, acidly.  And, indeed, just then her time was very full.
+She was enormously useful to the community that second winter;
+her young power and strength shone out against the growing
+weariness of the old sisters.  "Athalia's capable,"
+Eldress Hannah said, and the other sisters said "Yee,"
+and smiled at one another.
+
+"She IS useful," Sister Jane declared; "do you know, she got through
+the churning before nine?  I'd 'a' been at it until eleven!"
+
+"Athalia is like one of those candles that have a streak of soft
+wax in 'em," Eldress Hannah murmured; "but she's useful,
+as you say, Jane."
+
+In January, when the Eldress fell ill, Athalia was especially useful.
+She nursed her with a passion of faithfulness that made
+the other sisters remonstrate.
+
+"You'll wear yourself out, Athalia; you haven't had your clothes
+off for three days and nights!"
+
+"The Lord has upheld me, and His right hand has sustained me,"
+Athalia quoted, with an uplifted look.
+
+"Yee," old Jane assented, "but He likes sense, Athalia, and there
+ain't any reason why two of us shouldn't take turns settin'
+up with her tonight."
+
+"This is my service," Athalia said, smiling joyously.
+
+Eldress Hannah, lying with closed eyes, said, suddenly:
+"Athalia, don't be foolish and conceited.  You go right along
+to your bed; Jane and Mary'll look after me."
+
+It took Athalia a perceptible minute to get herself in hand
+sufficiently to say, meekly, "Yee, Eldress."  When she had shut
+the door behind her with perhaps something more than Shaker
+emphasis, the Eldress opened her eyes and smiled at old Jane.
+"She's smart," she said.
+
+"Yee," said Sister Jane; and there was a little chuckle.
+
+The sick woman closed her eyes again and sighed.
+"What a nurse Lydia was!" she said; and added, suddenly:
+"How is Nathan getting along with Lewis?  There isn't much
+more time, I guess," she ended, mildly; "she won't last it
+out another summer."
+
+"She's done better than I expected to stay till now," Jane said;
+and the Eldress nodded.
+
+But it was, perhaps, a natural result of Athalia's abounding energy
+that toward the end of that second winter in the Shaker village she
+should grow irritable.  The spring work was very heavy that year.
+Brother William was too feeble to do even the light, pottering
+tasks that had been allotted to him, and his vague babblings
+about the spirits ceased altogether.  In April old Jane died,
+and that put extra burdens on Athalia's capable shoulders.
+"But I notice I don't get anything extra for my work, not even thanks!"
+she told Lewis, sharply, and forgot to call him "Brother."
+She had walked down Lonely Lake Road and stopped at his gate.
+She looked thinner; her forget-me-not eyes were clouded, and there
+was an impatient line about her lips, instead of the faint,
+ecstatic smile which was part of her early experience.
+
+"Yes, there's lots of work to be done," he agreed, "but when people
+do it together--"
+
+"What do you think?"--she interrupted him, her lip drooping
+a little in a half-contemptuous smile--"they've heard
+again from that Sister Lydia who ran away!  You know
+who I mean?--Brother Nathan is always talking about her.
+They think she'll come back.  _I_ should say good riddance!
+Though of course if it's genuine repentance I'll be glad.
+Only I don't think it is."
+
+"How pleased Nathan will be!"  Lewis said.
+
+"Oh, he's pleased; he's rather too pleased for a Shaker,
+it strikes me."
+
+Lewis frowned.  "There is joy in the presence of the angels,"
+he reminded her, gravely.
+
+"Angels!" she said, with a laugh; "I don't believe so much
+in the angels as I did before I knew so much about them.
+I understand that when this 'angel' comes back I am to give up
+my room to her, if you please, because it used to be hers.
+Oh, I'm of no importance now--Lewis," she broke off, suddenly,
+"who has our house this year?"
+
+"Davis; he wants to re-lease it in May."
+
+"He just takes it by the year, doesn't he?" she asked.
+
+He nodded.  "Wants a five-years' lease next time."
+
+"Well, don't give it to him!" she said; and added, frowning:
+"You ought to go back yourself, you know.  It's foolish for you
+to be here.  Why, it's almost two years!"
+
+"Time flies," he said, smiling.
+
+She laughed and sighed.  "Yes--I mean yee--indeed, it does!
+I was just thinking, Lewis, we've been married ten years!"
+
+"No, eight years.  We were married just eight years,"
+he said, soberly.
+
+The color flew into her face.  "Oh, yee; we were married eight
+years when I came in."
+
+He looked at her with great tenderness.  "Athalia, I have to confess
+to you that when you came I didn't think it would last with you.
+I distrusted the Holy Spirit.  And I came, myself, against my will,
+as you know.  But now I begin to think you were led--and perhaps you
+have led me."
+
+Athalia gave a little gasp--"WHAT!"
+
+"I am not sure yet," he said.
+
+"You said Shakerism was unhuman!"  Athalia protested, with a thrill
+of panic in her voice.
+
+"Ah!" he cried, his voice suddenly kindling, "you know
+what Nathan is always saying?--'That's not against it'?
+Athalia, its unhumanness, as you call it, is why I think it
+may be of God.  The human in us must give way to the divine.
+'First that which is natural; then that which is spiritual.'"
+
+"I--don't understand," she said, faintly; "you are not a Shaker?"
+
+"No," he said, "not yet.  But perhaps some day--I am trying
+to follow you, Athalia."
+
+She caught her breath with a frightened look.  "Follow--ME?"  Then she
+burst out crying.
+
+"Why, Tay!" he said, bewildered; "what is it, dear?"
+But she had left him, stumbling blindly as she walked,
+her face hidden in her hands.
+
+Lewis went back into his house, and, lighting his lamp,
+sat down to pore over one of Brother Nathan's books.
+He was concerned, but he smiled a little; it was so like
+Athalia to cry when she was happy!  He did not see his wife
+for several days.  The Eldress said Sister 'Thalia was
+not well, and Lewis looked sorry, but made no comment.
+He was a little anxious, but he did not dwell upon his anxiety.
+In the next few days he worked hard all day in Brother Nathan's
+herb-house, where the air was hazy with the aromatic dust
+of tansy and pennyroyal, then hurried home at night to sit
+down to his books, so profoundly absorbed in them that sometimes
+he only knew that it was time to sleep because the dawn fell
+white across the black-lettered page.
+
+But one night, a week later, when he came home from work,
+he did not open his Bible; he stood a long time in his doorway,
+looking at the sunset, and, as he looked, his face seemed to shine
+with some inner light.  The lake was like glass; high in the upper
+heavens thin golden lines of cloud had turned to rippling copper;
+the sky behind the black circle of the hills was a clear,
+pale green, and in the growing dusk the water whitened like snow.
+"'Glass mingled with fire,'" he murmured to himself;
+"yes, 'great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty;
+just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of Saints!'"  And what
+more marvellous work than this wonder of his own salvation?
+Brought here against his will, against his judgment!
+How he had struggled against the Spirit.  He was humbled to
+the earth at the remembrance of it; "if I had my way, we wouldn't
+have walked up the hill from the station that morning!" . . .
+
+The flushing heavens faded into ashes, but the solemn glow
+of half-astonished gratitude lingered on his face.
+
+"Lewis," some one said in the darkness of the lane--"LEWIS!"  Athalia came
+up the path swiftly and put her hands on his arm.  "Lewis, I--I want
+to go home."  She sobbed as she spoke.
+
+He started as if she had struck him.
+
+"Lewis, Lewis, let us go home!"
+
+The flame of mystical satisfaction went out of his face as a lighted
+candle goes out in the wind.
+
+"There isn't any home now, Athalia," he said, with a sombre look;
+"there's only a house.  Come in," he added, heavily; "we must
+talk this out."
+
+She followed him, and for a moment they neither of them spoke;
+he fumbled about in the warm darkness for a match, and lifting the shade,
+lighted the lamp on the table; then he looked at her.  "Athalia," he said,
+in a terrified voice, "I am--_I am a Shaker!_"
+
+"No--no--no!" she said.  She grew very white, and sat down,
+breathing quickly.  Then the color came back faintly into her lips.
+"Don't say it, Lewis; it isn't true.  It can't be true!"
+
+"It is true," he said, with a groan.  He had sunk into a chair,
+and his face was hidden in his hands.  "What are we going to do?"
+he said, hoarsely.
+
+"Why, you mustn't be!" she cried; "you can't be--that's all.
+You can't STAY if I go!"
+
+"I must stay," he said.
+
+There was a stunned silence.  Then she said, in an amazed whisper:
+
+"What!  You don't love me any more?"
+
+Still he was silent.
+
+"You--don't--love--me," she said, as if repeating some astounding fact,
+which she could not yet believe.
+
+He seemed to gather his courage up.
+
+"I have--" he tried to speak; faltered, broke, went on:
+"I have--the kindliest feelings toward you, 'Thalia"--his last
+word was in a whisper.
+
+"Stop!" she protested, with a frightened look--"oh, stop!--
+don't say THAT!"  He did not speak; and suddenly, looking at
+his fixed face, she cried out, violently:  "Oh, why, why did
+I go up to the graveyard that day?  Why did you let me?"
+She stared at him, her forget-me-not eyes dilating with dismay.
+"It all came from that.  If we hadn't walked up the hill
+that morning--" He was speechless.  Then, abruptly, she sprang
+to her feet, and, running to him, knelt beside him and
+tried to pull down the hands in which he had again hidden
+his face.  "Lewis, it's I--Tay!  You don't 'feel kindly'
+to ME?  Lewis, you haven't stopped loving me?"
+
+"I am a Shaker," he said, helplessly.  "I can't give up my religion,
+even for you."
+
+He got on his feet and stood before her, his empty palms hanging at his
+sides in that strange gesture of entire hopelessness; he tried to speak,
+but no words came.  The lamp on the table flickered a little.
+Their shadows loomed gigantic on the wall behind them; the little hot
+room was very still.
+
+"You think you don't love me?"  Athalia said, between set teeth;
+"_I know better!_" With a laugh she caught his arm with both
+her shaking hands, and kissed him once, and then again.
+Still he was silent.  Then with a cry she threw herself against
+his breast.  "I love you," she said, passionately, "and you love me!
+Nothing on earth will make me believe you don't love me,"--
+and for one vital moment her lips burned against his.
+
+His arms did not close about her,--but his hands clinched slightly.
+Then he moved back a step or two, and she heard him sigh.
+"Don't, sister," he said, gently.
+
+She threw up her hands with a frantic gesture.  "SISTER?  My God!"
+she said; and left him.
+
+* * *
+
+
+There was no further struggle between them.  A week later she went away.
+As he told her, "the house was there"--and to that she went until she
+should go to find some whirl of life that would make her deaf to voices
+of the past.
+
+As for Lewis, he did not see that miserable departure from the
+Family House in the shabby old carryall that had been the Shakers'
+one vehicle for more than thirty years.  He told Nathan he wanted
+to mow the burial-ground up on the hill that morning.  From that high
+and silent spot he could see the long white road up from the settlement
+on one side and down to the covered bridge on the other side.
+He sat under the pine-tree, his scythe against the stone wall
+behind him, his clinched hands between his knees.  Sitting thus,
+he watched the road and the slow crawl of the shaky old carriage.
+. . . After it had passed the burying-ground and was out of sight,
+he hid his face in his bent elbow.
+
+
+It was some ten years afterward that word came to Eldress Hannah
+that Athalia Hall was dying and wanted to see her husband;
+would he come to her?
+
+"Will you go, Brother Lewis?"  Eldress asked him, doubtfully.
+
+"Yee, if you think best," he said.
+
+"I do think best," the old woman said.
+
+He went, a bent, elderly man in a gray coat, threading his
+wavering way through the noisy buffet of the streets of
+the city where Athalia had elected to dwell.  He found her
+in a gaudy hotel, full of the glare of pushing, hurrying life.
+He sat down at her bedside, a little breathless, and looked
+at her with mild, remote eyes.
+
+"Do you forgive me, Lewis?" she said.
+
+"I have nothing to forgive, sister," he told her.
+
+"Don't call me that!" she cried, with feeble passion.
+
+He looked a little bewildered.  "Yee," he said, "I forgive you."
+
+"Oh, Lewis!--Lewis!--Lewis!" she mourned; "this is what I have done!"
+She wept pitifully.  His face grew vaguely troubled, as if he did
+not quite understand. . . . Then, abruptly, the veil lifted:
+his eyes dilated with pain; he passed his hand over his forehead
+once or twice and sighed.  Then he looked down at the poor,
+dying face that once he had loved.
+
+"Why, 'Thalia!" he said, in a surprised and anguished voice;
+suddenly he put his arm under the restless head.  "There, there,
+little Tay; don't cry," he said, and smiled at her.
+
+And with that she was content to fall asleep.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext The Way to Peace, by Margaret Deland
+
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