discretion. Thus they
had known each other from early childhood, never in the familiar way
common to the children of the world, but with the cool, cheerful,
casual, wholly impersonal attitude of Shaker friendship, a relation
seemingly outside of and superior to sex, a relation more like that of
two astral bodies than the more intimate one of a budding Adam and Eve.

When and where had this relationship changed its color and meaning?
Neither Nathan nor Hetty could have told. For years Nathan had sat at
his end of the young men's bench at the family or the public meeting,
with Hetty exactly opposite him at the end of the girls' row, and for
years they had looked across the dividing space at each other with
unstirred pulses. The rows of Sisters sat in serene dignity, one bench
behind another, and each Sister was like unto every other in Nathan's
vague, dreamy, boyishly indifferent eyes. Some of them were seventy and
some seventeen, but each modest figure sat in its place with quiet
folded hands. The stiff caps hid the hair, whether it was silver or
gold; the white surplices covered the shoulders and concealed beautiful
curves as well as angular outlines; the throats were scarcely visible,
whether they were yellow and wrinkled or young and white. The Sisters
were simply sisters to fair-haired Nathan, and the Brothers were but
brothers to little black-eyed Hetty.

Once--was it on a Sunday morning?--Nathan glanced across the separating
space that is the very essence and sign of Shakerism. The dance had just
ceased, and there was a long, solemn stillness when God indeed seemed to
be in one of His holy temples and the earth was keeping silence before
Him. Suddenly Hetty grew to be something more than one of the figures in
a long row: she chained Nathan's eye and held it.

"Through her garments the grace of her glowed." He saw that, in spite of
the way her hair had been cut and stretched back from the forehead, a
short dusky tendril, softened and coaxed by the summer heat, had made
its way mutinously beyond the confines of her cap. Her eyes were cast
down, but the lashes that swept her round young cheek were quite
different from any other lashes in the Sisters' row. Her breath came and
went softly after the exertion of the rhythmic movements, stirring the
white muslin folds that wrapped her from throat to waist. He looked and
looked, until his body seemed to be all eyes, absolutely unaware of any
change in himself; quite obliv