“But I wrote letters to her, too, asking what had become of you.”

“She went to Minnesota, you know, early in February.”

“And why didn’t you go with her?”

“She scolded me dreadfully because I would not.  But she was so well, and she had her maid and a pleasant party of Philadelphia friends; and I—­well, I didn’t want to put all those hundreds of miles between me and the sea.”

“And was Shaker Village so near, then, to the sea?”

“Oh, Charlie,” hiding her face on my shoulder, “that was cowardice in me.  You know I meant to keep the cottage open and live there.  It was the saddest place in all the world, but still I wanted to be there—­alone.  But I found I could not be alone; and the last people who came drove me nearly wild—­those R——­s, Fanny Meyrick’s friends—­and they talked about her and about you, so that I could bear it no longer.  I wanted to hide myself from all the world.  I knew I could be quiet at the Shaker village.  I had often driven over there with Aunt Sloman:  indeed, Sophia—­that’s the one you saw—­is a great friend of Aunt Maria’s.”

“So the lady-abbess confessed, did she?” I asked with some curiosity.

“Yes:  she said you were rudely inquisitive; but she excused you as unfamiliar with Shaker ways.”

“And were you really at Watervliet?”

“Yes, but don’t be in a hurry:  we’ll come to that presently.  Sophia gave me a pretty little room opening out of hers, and they all treated me with great kindness, if they did call me Eliza.”

“And did you,” I asked with some impatience, remembering Hiram’s description—­“did you sew beads on velvet and plait straw for mats?”

“Nonsense!  I did whatever I pleased.  I was parlor-boarder, as they say in the schools.  But I did learn something, sir, from that dear old sister Martha.  You saw her?”

“The motherly body who invited me in?”

“Yes:  isn’t she a dear?  I took lessons from her in all sorts of cookery:  you shall see, Charlie, I’ve profited by being a Shakeress.”

“Yes, my darling, but did you—­you didn’t go to church?”

“Only once,” she said, with a shiver that made her all the dearer, “and they preached such dreary stuff that I told Sophia I would never go again.”

“But did you really wear that dress I saw you in?”

“For that once only.  You see, I was at Watervliet when you came.  If you had only gone straight there, dear goose! instead of dodging in the road, you would have found me.  I had grown a little tired of the monotony of the village, and was glad to join the party starting for Niskayuna, it was such a glorious drive across the mountain.  I longed for you all the time.”

“Pretty little Shakeress!  But why did they put us on such a false track?”

“Oh, we had expected to reach home that night, but one of the horses was lame, and we did not start as soon as we had planned.  We came back on Saturday afternoon—­Saturday afternoon, and this is Monday morning!”, leaning back dreamily, and looking across the blue distance to the far-off hills.  “Then I got your card, and they told me about you, and I knew, for all the message, that you’d be back on Sunday morning.  But how could I tell then that Fanny Meyrick would not be with you?”