Thus in praise of her servant she spake, and Hannah the housemaid
Laughed with her eyes, as she listened, but governed her tongue, and was silent,
While her mistress went on:  “The house is far from the village;
We should be lonely here, were it not for Friends that in passing
Sometimes tarry o’ernight, and make us glad by their coming.”

Thereupon answered Hannah the housemaid, the thrifty, the frugal: 
“Yea, they come and they tarry, as if thy house were a tavern;
Open to all are its doors, and they come and go like the pigeons
In and out of the holes of the pigeon-house over the hayloft,
Cooing and smoothing their feathers and basking themselves in the sunshine.”

But in meekness of spirit, and calmly, Elizabeth answered: 
“All I have is the Lord’s, not mine to give or withhold it;
I but distribute his gifts to the poor, and to those of his people
Who in journeyings often surrender their lives to his service. 
His, not mine, are the gifts, and only so far can I make them
Mine, as in giving I add my heart to whatever is given. 
Therefore my excellent father first built this house in the clearing;
Though he came not himself, I came; for the Lord was my guidance,
Leading me here for this service.  We must not grudge, then, to others
Ever the cup of cold water, or crumbs that fall from our table.”

Thus rebuked, for a season was silent the penitent housemaid;
And Elizabeth said in tones even sweeter and softer: 
“Dost thou remember, Hannah, the great May-Meeting in London,
When I was still a child, how we sat in the silent assembly,
Waiting upon the Lord in patient and passive submission? 
No one spake, till at length a young man, a stranger, John Estaugh,
Moved by the Spirit, rose, as if he were John the Apostle,
Speaking such words of power that they bowed our hearts, as a strong wind
Bends the grass of the fields, or grain that is ripe for the sickle. 
Thoughts of him to-day have been oft borne inward upon me,
Wherefore I do not know; but strong is the feeling within me
That once more I shall see a face I have never forgotten.”

II

E’en as she spake they heard the musical jangle of sleigh-bells,
First far off, with a dreamy sound and faint in the distance,
Then growing nearer and louder, and turning into the farmyard,
Till it stopped at the door, with sudden creaking of runners. 
Then there were voices heard as of two men talking together,
And to herself, as she listened, upbraiding said Hannah the housemaid,
“It is Joseph come back, and I wonder what stranger is with him?”