Miss Bessie comes up and opens the house.  She stayed there about a week, and she had lots of company while she was here.  I think she got tired.  They was people that was just goin’ to sail for Europe, and as soon as they went she just shut up and told me to send for Mary Jane to take care of things.  So Mary Jane never see her, and perhaps she giv’ you a crooked answer, sir, if you was inquirin’ of her over to the cottage.”

“Where’s Hiram? where’s your husband?  Can I have his team this morning?”

“I guess so,” said the sympathetic Mrs. Splinter.  “He’ll show you the very house he druv’ her to.”

Hiram was hunted for and found; and an hour later I was bowling along the Lebanon road behind the bay team he was so proud of.  I had concluded to take him’ with me, as he could identify places and people, and I knew well what castles the Shaker houses are for the world’s people outside.  Hiram was full of talk going over.  He seemed to have been bottling it up, and I was the first auditor for his wrath.  “I know ‘m,” he said, cracking his whip over his horses’ heads.  “They be sharp at a bargain, they be.  If they’ve contrived to get a hold on Bessie Stewart, property and all, it’ll go hard on ’em to give her up.”

“A hold on Bessie!” What dreadful words!  I bade him sharply hold his tongue and mind his horses, but he went on muttering in an undertone, “Yo’ll see, yo’ll see!  You’re druv’ pretty hard, young man, I expect, so I won’t think nothing of your ha’sh words, and we’ll get her out, for all Elder Nebson.”

So Hiram, looked out along the road from under his huge fur-cap, and up hill and down.  The miles shortened, until at last the fair houses and barns of the Shaker village came in sight.  A sleeping village, one would have thought.  Nobody in the road save one old man, who eyed us suspiciously through the back of a chair he was carrying.

“It must be dinner-time, I think,” said Hiram as he drove cautiously along.  Stopping at a house near the bridge:  “Now this is the very house.  Just you go right up and knock at that ’ere door.”

I knocked.  In a twinkling the door was opened by a neat Shaker sister, whose round, smiling face was flushed, as though she had just come from cooking dinner.  I stepped across the threshold:  “Bessie Stewart is here.  Please say to her that a friend—­a friend from England—­wishes to see her.”

“Sure,” said the motherly-faced woman, for she was sweet and motherly in spite of her Shaker garb, “I’ll go and see.”

Smilingly she ushered me into a room at the left of the hall.  “Take seat, please;” and with a cheerful alacrity she departed, closing the door gently behind her.

“Well,” thought I, “this is pleasant:  no bolts or bars here.  I’m sure of one friend at court.”