erchief rose and fell, rose and fell
tumultuously, while her face was suffused with color. Nathan's knees
quivered under him, and when the Elder rose, and they began the sacred
march, the lad could hardly stand for trembling. He dreaded the moment
when the lines of Believers would meet, and he and Hetty would walk the
length of the long room almost beside each other. Could she hear his
heart beating, Nathan wondered; while Hetty was palpitating with fear
lest Nathan see her blushes and divine their meaning. Oh, the joy of it,
the terror of it, the strange exhilaration and the sudden sensation of
sin and remorse!

The meeting over, Nathan flung himself on the haymow in the great barn,
while Hetty sat with her "Synopsis of Shaker Theology" at an open window
of the girls' building, seeing nothing in the lines of print but
visions that should not have been there. It was Nathan who felt most
and suffered most and was most conscious of sin, for Hetty, at first,
scarcely knew whither she was drifting.

She went into the herb-garden with Susanna one morning during the
week that followed the fatal Sunday. Many of the plants to be used for
seasoning--sage, summer savory, sweet marjoram, and the like--were quite
ready for gathering. As the two women were busy at work, Susanna as full
of her thoughts as Hetty of hers, the sound of a step was heard brushing
the grass of the orchard. Hetty gave a nervous start; her cheeks grew so
crimson and her breath so short that Susanna noticed the change.

"It will be Brother Ansel coming along to the grindstone," Hetty
stammered, burying her head in the leaves.

"No," Susanna answered, "it is Nathan. He has a long pole with a saw on
the end. He must be going to take the dead branches off the apple trees;
I heard Ansel tell him yesterday to do it."

"Yee, that will be it," said Hetty, bending over the plants as if she
were afraid to look elsewhere.

Nathan came nearer to the herb-garden. He was a tall, stalwart, handsome
enough fellow, even in his quaint working garb. As the Sisters spun and
wove the cloth as well as cut and made the men's garments, and as the
Brothers themselves made the shoes, there was naturally no great air
of fashion about the Shaker raiment; but Nathan carried it better than
most. His skin was fair and rosy, the down on his upper lip showed
dawning manhood, and when he took off his broad-brimmed straw hat and
stretched to his full height to reach the upper branches o