e was leading his overwrought, ecstatic band across
the river, Waitstill Baxter, then a child, was watching the strange,
noisy company from the window of a little brick dwelling on the top of
the Town-House Hill.

Her stepmother stood beside her with a young baby in her arms, but when
she saw what held the gaze of the child she drew her away, saying: "We
mustn't look, Waitstill; your father don't like it!"

"Who was the big man at the head, mother?"

"His name is Jacob Cochrane, but you mustn't think or talk about him; he
is very wicked."

"He doesn't look any wickeder than the others," said the child. "Who was
the man that fell down in the road, mother, and the woman that knelt and
prayed over him? Why did he fall, and why did she pray, mother?"

"That was Master Aaron Boynton, the schoolmaster, and his wife. He only
made believe to fall down, as the Cochranites do; the way they carry on
is a disgrace to the village, and that's the reason your father won't
let us look at them."

"I played with a nice boy over to Boynton's," mused the child.

"That was Ivory, their only child. He is a good little fellow, but his
mother and father will spoil him with their crazy ways."

"I hope nothing will happen to him, for I love him," said the child
gravely. "He showed me a humming-bird's nest, the first ever I saw, and
the littlest!"

"Don't talk about loving him," chided the woman. "If your father should
hear you, he'd send you to bed without your porridge."

"Father couldn't hear me, for I never speak when he's at home," said
grave little Waitstill. "And I'm used to going to bed without my
porridge."

II. THE SISTERS

THE river was still running under the bridge, but the current of time
had swept Jacob Cochrane out of sight, though not out of mind, for he
had left here and there a disciple to preach his strange and uncertain
doctrine. Waitstill, the child who never spoke in her father's presence,
was a young woman now, the mistress of the house; the stepmother was
dead, and the baby a girl of seventeen.

The brick cottage on the hilltop had grown only a little shabbier.
Deacon Foxwell Baxter still slammed its door behind him every morning at
seven o'clock and, without any such cheerful conventions as good-byes to
his girls, walked down to the bridge to open his store.

The day, properly speaking, had opened when Waitstill and Patience had
left their beds at dawn, built the fire, fed the hens and turkeys, and