n
whose veins are pulsing with youth does not know, as she stands between
her lovers, how far influences not born of reason are affecting her
understanding. Ephraim remained neglectful, and Susannah remembered with
more and more distinct compassion Halsey's wistful face and the touch of
his trembling hand. But the emotion which is deeper than human love was
also in ferment. The shock which she had received, aided by the pressure
at home, had effectually worked religious unrest. She was certain now
that she must do some new thing to obtain peace with God. Long
monotonous days ripened within her this altered mind.

On one of the warm days that fell at the end of the apple harvest, when
such vagrant labourers as had collected to help the farmers were
loitering at liberty, Smith held his first and last public meeting in
the place where his boyhood had been passed. It was near the cross-roads
on the old highroad to Palmyra, where a small wooden bridge carries
over a creek that runs through the meadow to the Canandaigua. Here in
the leisure time of the afternoon Smith lifted up his voice and preached
to an ever-increasing crowd, composed first of men, and added to by
whole families from most of those houses within touch of the village.

The elder Croom, his wife, and Susannah were returning from the weekly
shopping at Palmyra's store; they came upon the crowd, and stopped
perforce. Wrath was upon the faces of the elder couple, and nothing less
than terror upon Susannah's white cheeks.

Susannah would have run far to have been saved the awful interrogation
of opportunity. Perhaps all that she knew just then, in her childlike
bewilderment, was that the slanders of the persecution were wrong, and
her untrained mind jumped to the conclusion that the God of truth must
therefore be with Smith. Beyond this there was unnamed wonder at the
unexplained influence that Smith held over her, and more curious
thoughts, stretching out like the delicate tendrils of an unsupported
vine, concerning Halsey, his prayers and warnings, and the strength of
selfless devotion that she had read in his innocent eyes.

Old Croom, deacon and magistrate, was not one to tarry at such a
gathering longer than need be. When he perceived that some of the planks
of the bridge had been taken to support the dam he alighted and broke
down a log fence in order to drive his horses through meadow and stream
to join the road nearer home. His women must needs walk ov