But she had not much time to give to Brother Lewis’s salvation--she was so busy in adjusting herself to her new life. Its picturesque details fascinated her--the cap, the brevity of speech, the small mannerisms, the occasional and very reserved mysticism, absorbed her so that she thought very little of her husband. She saw him occasionally on those walks down to the lake, or when, after a day in the fields with the three old Shaker men, Brother Nathan brought him home to supper. “We Shakers are given to hospitality,” he said; “we’re always looking for the angel we are going to entertain unawares. Come along home with us, Lewis.” And Lewis would plod up the hill and take his turn at the tin washbasin, and then file down the men’s side of the stairs to the dining-room, where he and the three old brothers sat at one table, and Athalia and the eight sisters sat at the other table. After supper he had the chance to see Athalia and to make sure that she was not looking tired. “You didn’t take cold yesterday, ‘Thalia? I saw you were out in the rain,” he would say. And she, always a little embarrassed at such personal interest, would reply, primly, “I am not at all tired, Brother Lewis.” Nathan used to walk home with his guest, and sometimes they talked of work that must be done, and sometimes touched on more unpractical things--those spiritual manifestations which at rare intervals centred in Brother William and were the hope of the whole community. For who could tell when the old man’s incoherent muttering would break into the clear speech of one of those Heavenly Visitants who, in the early days, had descended upon the Shakers, and then, for some divine and deeply mysterious reason, withdrawn from such pure channels of communication, and manifested themselves in the world,--but through base and sordid natures. Poor, vague Brother William, who saw visions and dreamed dreams, was, in this community, the torch that held a smouldering spark of the divine fire, and when, in a cataleptic state, his faint intelligence fluttered back into some dim depths of personality, and he moaned and muttered, using awful names with babbling freedom, Brother Nathan and the rest listened with pathetic eagerness for a _“thus saith the Lord,”_ which should enflame the gray embers of Shakerism and give light to the whole world! When Nathan talked of these things he would add, with a sigh, that he hoped some day William would be inspired to tell them something more of Sister Lydia: “Once William said, ‘Coming, coming.’ _I_ think it meant Lydia; but Eldress thought it was Athalia; it was just before she came.” Brother Nathan sighed. “I wish it had meant Lydy,” he said, simply. If Lewis wished it had meant Lydy, he did not say so. And, indeed, he said very little upon any subject; Brother Nathan did most of the talking.