ent or the strenuous conscience that
keeps up fanatics and martyrs. Witchcraft could not prosper here, there
being only one trial on record, and that easily dismissed. The mantle of
charity and peace still hovered over the place, and prosperity had
brought about easy habits. Perhaps, too, the luxuriant growth and
abundance of everything assisted. Nature smiled, springs were early,
autumns full of tender glory.

And though the city was not crowded, according to modern terms, there
were many who migrated up the Schuylkill every summer, who owned
handsome farms and wide-spreading country houses. Chestnut Hill and
Mount Airy, Stenton and the Chew House at Germantown, were the scene of
many a summer festivity where Friends and world's people mingled in
social enjoyment; pretty Quakeresses practiced the fine art of pleasing
and making the most of demure ways and eyes that could be so seductively
downcast, phraseology that admitted of more intimacy when prefaced by
the term "Friend," or lingered in dulcet tones over the "thee and thou."

Madam Wetherill always made a summer flitting to her fine and profitable
farm, and surrounded herself with guests. She was very fond of company
and asked people of different minds, having a great liking for argument,
though it was difficult to find just where she stood on many subjects,
except the Church and her decided objection to many of the tenets of the
Friends, though she counted several of her most intimate acquaintances
among them. She had a certain graceful suavity and took no delight in
offending anyone.

But she was moved to the heart by Lois Henry's misfortunes. The old
mother sat under a great walnut tree on a high-backed bench, with some
knitting in her hand, in which she merely run the needles in and out and
wound the yarn around any fashion, while she babbled softly or asked a
question and forgot it as soon as asked. Rather spare in figure and much
wrinkled in face, she still had a placid look and smiled with a
meaningless softness as anyone drew near.

For a moment Madam Wetherill thought of William Penn, whom her father
had visited at Ruscombe in those last years of a useful life when
dreams were his only reality, still gentle and serene, and fond of
children. Faith was sitting at her knee and answering her aimless talk,
and Rachel had her spinning wheel on the porch.

Madam Wetherill alighted from her horse, and Rachel came out to her. She
sometimes took her servant, bu