The changes that had occurred since Tom’s departure in the summer of 1809 had brought no sadness with them. When he had gone away, he had left his sisters, Susan and Mary, as young girls; the former sixteen and the latter fifteen years old. They had now grown into a pair of fine young women and were chits no longer. This was the first and greatest change that struck Tom, so you may see how little had happened. The folks were already beginning to tease Susan about Will Gaines, who had just returned from Philadelphia, where he had been studying law, and had set up an office for himself in Eastcaster. The next day was Sunday, or First-day, as we call it in Quaker neighborhoods, and as all of the family were going to meeting, Tom put on his best toggery to go with them. It was a beautiful, bright clear day, and as Tom stood on the porch waiting for Henry, who was to go with him, his heart swelled within him with the love of home. It seemed sweet to him to look on the young leaves of the trees, the green meadowlands and the richness of growing wheat, after seeing nothing for months but a wide stretch of troubled waters; it was good to feel the balmy blowing of a breeze that was not salt; to hear the singing of the robin and the chattering of the wren; the crowing of the cocks and the lowing of the cattle, and not to have in his ears the everlasting washing and gurgling of the water alongside. The folks use to ride to meeting on horseback in the old times, the women behind the men on pillion saddles. But Tom was a sailor, and consequently no good figure on horseback, so he and Henry, the youngest, set off ahead of the rest to foot it, for the homestead farm was only a mile and a half from Eastcaster meeting. The meeting-house looked very pleasant where it stood, back from the street under the shadow of the two great elms in front of it. The old meeting-house was standing then, for they did not tear it down to make room for the new building until ’32. The present building is larger than the old one was, and is, no doubt, lighter and better, and more comfortable in many ways; but for all that, I have never liked it as well as the old black and red brick meeting-house, with its high roof running up to a point from all four corners and topped with something that looked like a belfry, though it had no bell in it, of course. In the old days, as now, when the weather was warm and bright and pleasant, the men used to stand for a while around the door of their side of the meeting, talking and chatting together before they went into the building. Such a group was standing on the grass under the shadow of the elm trees as Tom and his brother Henry came up the steps that led into the meeting-house yard.