erness country these thirty miles, to meet with you to-day, and to
bear to you these two messages from Him, "The Beloved of the Lord
shall dwell in safety by Him," and "He shall cover thee with His
feathers all the day long."'

The visitor sat down again in his seat. The furrowed line of anxiety
in old Zebulon Hoxie's high forehead smoothed itself away; the eyes of
one or two of the younger women Friends filled with tears. As the
speaker's voice ceased, little Susannah Hoxie's head, which had been
drooping lower and lower, finally found a resting-place, and was
encircled by her mother's arm. Young Mrs. Hoxie drew off her small
daughter's shady hat, and put it on the seat beside her, while she
very gently stroked back the golden curls from the child's high
forehead. In doing this she caught a rebuking glance from her elder
daughter, Dinah.

'Naughty, naughty Susie, to go to sleep in Meeting,' Dinah was
thinking; 'it is very hot, and _I_ am sleepy too, but _I_ don't go to
sleep. I do wish a butterfly would come in at the window just for
once--or a bird, a little bird with blue, and red, and pink, and
yellow feathers. I liked what that stranger Friend said about being
'covered with feathers all the day long.' I wish I was all covered
with feathers like a little bird. I wish there were feathers in
Meeting, or anywhere close outside.' She turned in her corner seat and
looked through the slit in the wall--why there were feathers close
outside the wall of the house, red, and yellow, and blue, and pink!
What could they be? Very gently Dinah moved her head, so that her eye
came closer to the slit. But, when she looked again, the feathers had
mysteriously disappeared--nothing was to be seen now but a slight
trembling of the tree branches in the wilderness woods at a little
distance.

In the mean while her brother, Benjamin Hoxie, on the other low seat
opposite the window, was also thinking of the stranger's sermon. 'He
said it was a valiant thing to do, to stop on here when all the
neighbours have left. I didn't know Friends could do valiant things. I
thought only soldiers were valiant. But if a scouting party really did
come--if those English scouts suddenly appeared, then even a Quaker
boy might have a chance to show that he is not necessarily a coward
because he does not fight.' Benjamin's eyes strayed also out of the
open window. It was very hot and still in the Meeting-house. Yet the
bushes certainly were trembling. How