n apples under the trees. "Make us a good
old-fashioned deep-dish pandowdy an' we'll all do our best to eat it!"

"I suppose the 'jiners' get discouraged and fear they can't keep up to
the standard. Not everybody is good enough to lead a self-denying Shaker
life," said Susanna, pushing back the close sunbonnet from her warm
face, which had grown younger, smoother, and sweeter in the last few
weeks.

"Nay, I s'pose likely; 'less they're same as me, a born Shaker," Ansel
replied. "I don't hanker after strong drink; don't like tobaccer
(always could keep my temper 'thout smokin'), ain't partic'lar 'bout
meat-eatin', don't keer 'bout heapin' up riches, can't 'stand the ways
o' worldly women-folks, jest as lives confess my sins to the Elder as
not, 'cause I hain't sinned any to amount to anything sence I made my
first confession; there I be, a natural follerer o' Mother Ann Lee."

Susanna drew her Shaker bonnet forward over her eyes and turned her
back to Brother Ansel under the pretense of reaching over to the rows of
sweet marjoram. She had never supposed it possible that she could laugh
again, and indeed she seldom felt like it, but Ansel's interpretations
of Shaker doctrine were almost too much for her latent sense of humor.

"What are you smiling at, and me so sad, Mardie?" quavered Sue,
piteously, from the little plot of easy weeding her mother had given her
to do. "I keep remembering my game! It was such a _Christian_ game,
too. Lots nicer than Mother Ann in prison; for Jane said her mother
and father was both Believers, and nobody was good enough to pour milk
through the keyhole but her. I wanted to give the clothes-pins story
names, like Hilda and Percy, but I called them Adam and Eve and Cain and
Abel just because I thought the Shakers would 'specially like a Bible
play. I love Elderess Abby, but she does stop my happiness, Mardie.
That's the second time today, for she took Moses away from me when I was
kissing him because he pinched his thumb in the window."

"Why did you do that, Sue?" remonstrated her mother softly, remembering
Ansel's proximity. "You never used to kiss strange little boys at home
in Farnham."

"Moses is n't a boy; he's only six, and that's a baby; besides, I like
him better than any little boys at home, and that's the reason I kissed
him; there's no harm in boy-kissing, is there, Mardie?"

"You don't know anybody here very well yet; not well enough to
kiss them," Susanna answered, rather