n' Elder Gray
always says I ain't earnest enough in preachin' the faith;--but he did
n't learn anything from the meetin'. Kep' his eye on the Shaker bunnits,
an' took notice o' the marchin' an' dancin', but he did n't care nothin'
'bout doctrine.

"'I draw the line at bein' a cerebrate,' he says. 'I'm willin' to sell
all my goods an' divide with the poor,' he says, 'but I ain't goin'
to lie no cerebrate. If I don't have no other luxuries, I will have a
wife,' he says. 'I've hed three, an' if this one don't last me out, I'll
get another, if it's only to start the kitchen fire in the mornin' an'
put the cat in the shed nights!'"

IV. Louisa's Mind

Louisa, otherwise Mrs. Adlai Banks, the elder sister of Susanna s
husband, was a rock-ribbed widow of forty-five summers,--forty-five
winters would seem a better phrase in which to assert her age,--who
resided on a small farm twenty miles from the manufacturing town of
Farnham.

When the Fates were bestowing qualities of mind and heart upon the
Hathaway babies, they gave the more graceful, genial, likable ones to
John, not realizing, perhaps, what bad use he would make of them,--and
endowed Louisa with great deposits of honesty, sincerity, energy,
piety, and frugality, all so mysteriously compounded that they turned to
granite in her hands. If she had been consulted, it would have been all
the same. She would never have accepted John's charm of personality at
the expense of being saddled with his weaknesses, and he would not have
taken her cast-iron virtues at any price whatsoever.

She was sweeping her porch on that day in May when Susanna and Sue
had wakened in the bare upper chamber at the Shaker Settlement--Sue
clear-eyed, jubilant, expectant, unafraid; Susanna pale from her fitful
sleep, weary with the burden of her heart.

Looking down the road, Mrs. Banks espied the form of her brother John
walking in her direction and leading Jack by the hand.

This was a most unusual sight, for John's calls had been uncommonly few
of late years, since a man rarely visits a lady relative for the mere
purpose of hearing "a piece of her mind." This piece, large, solid,
highly flavored with pepper, and as acid as mental vinegar could make
it, was Louisa Banks's only contribution to conversation when she met
her brother. She could not stop for any airy persiflage about weather,
crops, or politics when her one desire was to tell him what she thought
of him.

"Good-morning,