"Nay, we can't!" said Hetty. "Oh, Nathan, shall we confess all and see if they will help us to resist temptation? I know that's what Susanna would want me to do, but oh! I should dread it." "Nay, it is too late," Nathan answered drearily. "They could not help us, and we should be held under suspicion forever after." "I feel so wicked and miserable and unfaithful, I don't know what to do!" sobbed Hetty. "Yee, so do I!" the lad answered. "And I feel bitter against my father, too. He brought me here to get rid of me, because he didn't dare leave me on somebody's doorstep. He ought to have come back when I was grown a man and asked me if I felt inclined to be a Shaker, and if I was good enough to be one!" "And my stepfather wouldn't have me in the house, so my mother had to give me away; but they're both dead, and I'm alone in the world, though I've never felt it, because the Sisters are so kind. Now they will hate me--though they don't hate anybody." "You've got me, Hetty! We must go away and be married. We'd better go to-night to the minister in Albion." "What if he wouldn't do it?" "Why shouldn't he? Shakers take no vows, though I feel bound, hand and foot, out of gratitude. If any other two young folks went to him, he would marry them; and if he refuses, there are two other ministers in Albion, besides two more in Buryfield, five miles farther. If they won't marry us to-night, I'll leave you in some safe home and we'll walk to Portland to-morrow. I'm young and strong, and I know I can earn our living somehow." "But we haven't the price of a lodging or a breakfast between us," Hetty said tearfully. "Would it be sinful to take some of my basket-work and send back the money next week?" "Yee, it would be so," Nathan answered sternly. "The least we can do is to go away as empty-handed as we came. I can work for our breakfast." "Oh, I can't bear to disappoint Eldress Abby," cried Hetty, breaking anew into tears. "She'll say we've run away to live on the lower plane after agreeing to crucify Nature and follow the angelic life!" "I know; but there are five hundred people in Albion all living in marriage, and we shan't be the only sinners!" Nathan argued. "Oh, Sister Hetty, dear Hetty, keep up your spirits and trust to me!" Nathan's hand stole out and met Hetty's in its warm clasp, the first hand touch that the two ignorant young creatures had ever felt. Nathan's knowledge of life had been a journey to the Canterbury Shakers in New Hampshire with Brother Issachar; Hetty's was limited to a few drives into Albion village, and half a dozen chats with the world's people who came to the Settlement to buy basket-work. "I am not able to bear the Shaker life!" sighed Nathan. "Elder Gray allows there be such!" "Nor I," murmured Hetty. "Eldress Harriet knows I am no saint!"