peaceful strokes.
There was no tremor in them, no warning of what was coming. The air
was very still, and I stopped a moment to watch the bluebirds before I
turned into the Lebanon road.

There was the little gray cottage, with its last year's vines about
it, a withered spray here and there waving feebly as the soft April
air caught it and tossed it to and fro. No sign of life about the
cottage--doors and windows tight shut and barred. Only the little gate
swung open, but that might have been the wind. I stepped up on the
porch. No sound save the echo of my steps and the knocking of my
heart. I rang the bell. It pealed violently, but there were no
answering sounds: nothing stirred.

I rang again, more gently, and waited, looking along the little path
to the gate. There was snow, the winter's snow, lingering about the
roots of the old elm, the one elm tree that overhung the cottage.
Last winter's snow lying there, and of the people who had lived in the
house, and made it warm and bright, not a footprint, not a trace!

Again I rang, and this time I heard footsteps coming round the corner
of the house. I sat down on the rustic bench by the door. If it had
been Bessie's self, I could not have stirred, I was so chilled, so
awed by the blank silence. A brown sun-bonnet, surmounting a tall,
gaunt figure, came in sight.

"What is it?" asked the owner of the sun-bonnet in a quick, sharp
voice that seemed the prelude to "Don't want any."

"Where are Mrs. Sloman and Miss Stewart? Are they not in Lenox?"

"Miss' Sloman, she's away to Minnarsoter: ben thar' all winter for her
health. She don't cal'late to be home afore June."

"And Miss Stewart?--is she with her?"

"Miss Stewart? I dunno," said the woman, with a strange look about the
corners of her mouth. "I dunno: I never see her; and the family was
all away afore I came here to take charge. They left the kitchen-end
open for me; and my sister-in-law--that's Hiram Splinter's wife--she
made all the 'rangements. But I _did_ hear," hesitating a moment, "as
how Bessie Stewart was away to Shaker Village; and some does say "--a
portentous pause and clearing of her throat--"that she's jined."

"_Joined_--what?" I asked, all in a mist of impatience and perplexity.

"Jined the Shakers."

"Nonsense!" I said, recovering my breath angrily. "Where is this
Hiram's wife? Let me see her."

"In the back lot--there where you see the yaller house where the
chimney's smoking. That's H