eding me, searching for me in the dangerous open country,
while I was hidden away in the safe shelter of the wood--I and the other
little quail bird I had taken out of the nest."

"Do you think you could persuade your husband to unite with us?" asked
Abby, wiping her eyes.

The tension of the situation was too tightly drawn for mirth, or Susanna
could have smiled, but she answered soberly, "No; if John could develop
the best in himself, he could be a good husband and father, a good
neighbor and citizen, and an upright business man, but never a Shaker."

"Didn't he insult your wifely honor and disgrace your home?"

"Yes, in the last few weeks before I left him. All his earlier offenses
were more against himself than me, in a sense. I forgave him many a
time, but I am not certain it was the seventy times seven that the Bible
bids us. I am not free from blame myself. I was hard the last year, for
I had lost hope and my pride was trailing in the dust. I left him a
bitter letter, one without any love or hope or faith in it, just because
at the moment I believed I ought, once in my life, to let him know how I
felt toward him."

"How can you go back and live under his roof with that feeling? It's
degradation."

"It has changed. I was morbid then, and so wounded and weak that I could
not fight any longer. I am rested now, and calm. My pluck has come back,
and my strength. I've learned a good deal here about casting out my own
devils; now I am going home and help him to cast out his. Perhaps he
won't be there; perhaps he doesn't want me, though when he was his very
best self he loved me dearly; but that was long, long ago!" sighed
Susanna, drearily.

"Oh, this thing the world's people call love!" groaned Abby.

"There is love and love, even in the world outside; for if it is Adam's
world it is God's, too, Abby! The love I gave my husband was good, I
think, but it failed somewhere, and I am going back to try again. I am
not any too happy in leaving you and taking up, perhaps, heavier burdens
than those from which I escaped."

"Night after night I've prayed to be the means of leading you to the
celestial life," said the Eldress, "but my plaint was not worthy to be
heard. Oh, that God would increase our numbers and so revive our
drooping faith! We work, we struggle, we sacrifice, we pray, we defy the
world and deny the flesh, yet we fail to gather in Believers."

"Don't say you've failed, dear, dear Abby!" cried Susanna,