"Phœbe, I want you to know more about your mom. You know she was plain, a member of our Church. I would like you to dress like she did but I don't want you to dress that way and then be dissatisfied and go back to the dress of the world. Not many people do that, but those that do are the laughing-stock of the world. I don't want you coaxed to be plain and then not stay plain. I tell you this because I can see that you are just like your mom was, you like pretty things so much. She came in the Church with some girls she knew; none of her people were plain. I knew her right after she joined, and I took her to Love Feasts and to Meetings and we were soon promised to marry each other. I saw that something was troubling her and she told me that she wanted pretty clothes again and wanted to go to parties and picnics like some of the other girls she knew. But because she cared for me and was promised to me she kept on dressing plain. So we were married. The second year you came and then she was satisfied without pretty dresses. She said to me once, 'Jacob, I was foolish to fret about pretty clothes and jewelry, they could not bring happiness, but this'--she looked down at you--'this is the most precious, most beautiful jewel any woman could have.' I knew then that the love of vanity was gone from her, that she would never be tempted to go back to the dress and ways of the world." For a moment there was silence in the big room. The memory of the days when the home circle was unbroken left the father quiet and thoughtful and strangely touched Phœbe. "I am glad you told me, daddy," she said presently. "To-day when Phares talked about the baptizing he seemed so confident and at peace in his religion, yet I could not promise to come into the Church and wear the plain dress. I am going to think about it----" Here Aunt Maria called loudly, "Phœbe, come out here once." Phœbe sighed, then turned from her father and entered the kitchen. The older woman was bending over an oblong frame and by the aid of a small steel hook was pulling tufts of cloth through the mesh of a piece of burlap, the foundation of a hooked rug. "See once, Phœbe, won't this be pretty till it's done?" "Yes, very pretty. I like the Wall of Troy design you are using, and the blues and gray will be a good combination. What are you going to do with it?" "It's for your chest." The girl laughed. "Aunt Maria, you'll have to enlarge that chest or buy a second one. This spring when we cleaned house and had all the things of that chest hung out to air, I counted eleven quilts, six rugs, five table-cloths, ten gingham aprons, ever so many towels, besides all the old homespun linen I have in that other chest on the garret. I'll never need all that." "Why, you don't know. If you marry----" "But if I don't marry?"