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Sue watched the disappearing children and saw the fabric of her dream fade into thin air; but she was a person of considerable individuality for her years. Her lip quivered, tears rushed to her eyes and flowed silently down her cheeks, but without a glance at Eldress Abby or a word of comment she walked slowly away from the laundry, her chin high.
Sue looked a delicious Shaker with her delicate face, her lovely eyes, and her yellow hair grown into soft rings; and quite intoxicated with her cap, her knitting, and the general air of holiness so unexpectedly emanating from her, she moved her little hands up and down, as the tune rose and fell, in a way that would have filled Eldress Abby with joy.
"I wish we could do something like that now!" sighed Hetty Arnold, a pretty young creature who had moments of longing for the pomps and vanities. "If we have to give up all worldly pleasures, I think we might have more religious ones!" "We were a younger church in those old times of which Sister Tabitha speaks," said Eldress Abby.
"Yee and amen!" exclaimed Eldress Abby, devoutly: "'For thus saith the Lord of hosts: I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts." "O Virgin Church, how great the light, What cloud can dim thy way?"
"There are in some of the cells; but such are not allowed to novices," was the answer. Clara, who had been accustomed to a fire in winter all her life, shuddered; for even now, in the height of summer, the room felt cold. "I will now show you the rules," said the Mother Eldress, producing a book in manuscript.
"You should do as I do," she said, turning to Clara; "the Blessed Virgin demands our most devoted love and adoration; we can never do her honour enough." "I thought," observed Clara, "that as Protestants we did not worship the Virgin." "Let me entreat you, my child, never to utter that odious word Protestant," exclaimed the Mother Eldress.
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.
"Don't cry, darling Mardie! I won't talk any more, not for days and days! Let me wipe your poor eyes. Don't let Elder Gray see you crying, or he'll think I've been naughty. He's just going in downstairs to see Eldress Abby. Was it wrong what I said about backsliding, or what, Mardie? We'll help each udder climb, an' then we'll go home an' help poor lonesome Fardie; shall we?"
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?
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.
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