The Way to Peace | Page 8

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