Susanna followed, and as she caught up with the impetuous Sue, the front door of the house opened and a figure appeared on the threshold. Mother and child quickened their pace and went up the steps, Susanna with a hopeless burden of fear and embarrassment clogging her tongue and dragging at her feet; Sue so expectant of new disclosures and fresh experiences that her face beamed like a full moon. Eldress Abby (for it was Eldress Abby) had indeed survived the heavy weight of her fifty-five or sixty summers, and looked as if she might reach a yet greater age. She wore the simple Shaker afternoon dress of drab alpaca; an irreproachable muslin surplice encircled her straight, spare shoulders, while her hair was almost entirely concealed by the stiffly wired, transparent white-net cap that served as a frame to the tranquil face. The face itself was a network of delicate, fine wrinkles; but every wrinkle must have been as lovely in God's sight as it was in poor unhappy Susanna Hathaway's. Some of them were graven by self-denial and hard work; others perhaps meant the giving up of home, of parents and brothers or sisters; perhaps some worldly love, the love that Father Adam bequeathed to the human family, had been slain in Abby's youth, and the scars still remained to show the body's suffering and the spirit's triumph. At all events, whatever foes had menaced her purity or her tranquillity had been conquered, and she exhaled serenity as the rose sheds fragrance. "Do you remember the little Nelson girl and her mother that stayed here all night, years ago?" asked Susanna, putting out her hand timidly. [Illustration: DO YOU REMEMBER THE LITTLE NELSON GIRL AND HER MOTHER?] "Why, seems to me I do," assented Eldress Abby, genially. "So many comes and goes it's hard to remember all. Didn't you come once in a thunder-storm?" "Yes, one of your barns was struck by lightning and we sat up all night." "Yee, yee.[1] I remember well! Your mother was a beautiful spirit. I couldn't forget her." "And we came once again, mother and I, and spent the afternoon with you, and went strawberrying in the pasture." "Yee, yee, so we did; I hope your mother continues in health." "She died the very next year," Susanna answered in a trembling voice, for the time of explanation was near at hand and her heart failed her. "Won't you come into the sitting-room and rest awhile? You must be tired walking from the deepot."