should take a low wooden bench and add to it
a high back and ends, you would make a settle. It usually stood near the
fireplace, and was a most luxurious seat,--its high back protecting you
from cold draughts and keeping in the heat of the fire. It was now
shoved back against the wall. This neighborhood-gathering was called a
conference-meeting, being carried on by the brethren. I liked to hear
them speak, because they were so much in earnest. The exercises closed
with singing "Old Hundred." I joined at first, but soon there fell upon
my ear such sweet strains from the other side of the room that I was
glad to stop and listen. They came from the settle. It was Rachel,
singing counter. Only those who have heard it know what counter is, and
how particularly beautiful it is in "Old Hundred." I think it has
already been intimated that I was somewhat poetical. It will not,
therefore, be considered strange, that, when I heard those clear tones,
rising high above the harsher ones around, above the grating bass of the
brethren and the cracked voices of elderly females, I thought of summer
days in the woods, when I had listened to the notes of the robin amid a
chorus of locusts and grasshoppers.

Squire Brewster treated Rachel kindly; but women make the home, and Mrs.
Brewster was a hard woman. The neighbors said she was close, and would
have more of a cat than her skin. Miss Sarah had been out of town to
school, and was proud. Sam, the grown-up son, was coarse, but just as
proud as his sister. I disliked the way he looked at Rachel. Her
position in the family I soon understood. She was there to take the
drudgery from Mrs. Brewster, to be ordered about by Miss Sarah,
tormented by the younger children, and teased, if not insulted, by Sam.
What puzzled me was her manner towards them. She spoke but seldom, and,
it seemed to me, had a way of looking _down_ upon these people, who were
so bent upon making her look _up_ to them. The cross looks and words
seemed not to hit her. Her deep, dark eyes appeared as if they were
looking away beyond the scenes around her. I was very glad to see,
however, that she could notice Sam enough to avoid him; for to that
young man I had taken a dislike, and not, as it turned, without reason.

One evening, during my second week at the Brewsters', I sat long at my
chamber-window, watching the fading twilight, the growing moonlight, and
the steady snow-light. Presently I saw Rachel come out to take in the