'You did well, Friends,' the speaker continued, 'well to ask to be permitted to exercise your own judgment without blame to the authorities, well to say to them in all courtesy and charity, "You are clear of us in that you have warned us"--and to stay on in your dwellings and to carry out your accustomed work. The report of this your courage and faith hath reached us in our abiding place at East Hoosack, and the Lord hath charged me to come on foot through the wilderness country these thirty miles, to meet with you to-day, and to bear to you these two messages from Him, "The Beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by Him," and "He shall cover thee with His feathers all the day long."' The visitor sat down again in his seat. The furrowed line of anxiety in old Zebulon Hoxie's high forehead smoothed itself away; the eyes of one or two of the younger women Friends filled with tears. As the speaker's voice ceased, little Susannah Hoxie's head, which had been drooping lower and lower, finally found a resting-place, and was encircled by her mother's arm. Young Mrs. Hoxie drew off her small daughter's shady hat, and put it on the seat beside her, while she very gently stroked back the golden curls from the child's high forehead. In doing this she caught a rebuking glance from her elder daughter, Dinah. 'Naughty, naughty Susie, to go to sleep in Meeting,' Dinah was thinking; 'it is very hot, and _I_ am sleepy too, but _I_ don't go to sleep. I do wish a butterfly would come in at the window just for once--or a bird, a little bird with blue, and red, and pink, and yellow feathers. I liked what that stranger Friend said about being 'covered with feathers all the day long.' I wish I was all covered with feathers like a little bird. I wish there were feathers in Meeting, or anywhere close outside.' She turned in her corner seat and looked through the slit in the wall--why there were feathers close outside the wall of the house, red, and yellow, and blue, and pink! What could they be? Very gently Dinah moved her head, so that her eye came closer to the slit. But, when she looked again, the feathers had mysteriously disappeared--nothing was to be seen now but a slight trembling of the tree branches in the wilderness woods at a little distance.