th a child's desire to hear
a story that she knew by heart.

"Ephraim, you wrote once that you knew a man who loved--"

When he had given the answer she wanted, they went up the little brick
path, and Susannah noticed that the folded tulips and waxen hyacinths
flanked it in orderly ranks. Their light forms glimmered in the branch
shadows of the budding quince. It was true, what people said, that
Ephraim had not let his father's home decay. The door stood open, as
country doors are apt to do.

There was a lack of something in the dark appointments of the
sitting-room. The traces of busy domestic life were not there, and
sadness filled the place of the parents whom she had unfeignedly longed
to see again. Through a door ajar she saw light in the large kitchens. A
candle was upon a table, and an old woman, unknown to her, sat sewing
beside it. Ephraim, holding a burning match in clumsy fingers, lit a
student lamp--the fire of a new hearth.

CHAPTER VII.

Two years after that, Ephraim, returning one day from the field, brought
with him a poor wayfarer whom he had met upon the road.

The stranger was of middle age, with hair already gray and face deeply
furrowed. In ragged garments, resting his bandaged feet, he sat propped
in the sitting-room. The warm air blowing from rich harvest fields came
in at open door and windows. Attentive before him, Ephraim and Susannah
sat.

"You are one of the Latter-Day Saints?" Susannah asked.

"I am, ma'am, and it's real strange to hear you say them words, for it's
'Mormons' the Gentiles calls us."

Then to her questioning he told the story of the downfall of Nauvoo.

"There was two causes for the persecution; we had got too powerful and
too great for the folks in Illinois, just as we had done in Missouri;
but there was another thing, and that was that wickedness crept in
amongst us. 'Twasn't as bad as was reported, though, but 'twas
there--I'm afraid 'twas there."

The man sighed.

"It's twelve years now since I joined the Saints in Missouri and when we
were driven out there I went with them to Illinois; and I can never
believe other but that the Latter-Day Saints has the truth, for the
power of it is always to be seen among them; and now that I've lost
everything a second time, and know that I have a sickness that I'll
never get the better of, I have come east to see my folks once more and
to testify to them of the truth."

He was going on into Vermont, passing by