n her own self-chosen hardships to think of his; which
were not entirely self-chosen.

"I think I can find enough to do," he said; "the Shakers need an
able-bodied man; they only have those three old men."

"How do you know that?" she asked, quickly.

"I've been to see them twice this winter," he said.

"Why!" she said, amazed, "you never told me!"

"I don't tell you everything nowadays, 'Thalia," he said, briefly.

In those two visits to the Shakers, Lewis Hall had been treated with
great delicacy; there had been no effort to proselytize, and equally
there had been no triumphing over the accession of his wife; in fact,
Athalia was hardly referred to, except when they told him that they
would take good care of her, and when Brother Nathan volunteered a brief
summary of Shaker doctrines--"so as you can feel easy about her," he
explained: "We believe that Christ was the male principle in Deity, and
Mother Ann was the female principle. And we believe in confession of
our sins, and communion with the dead--spiritualism, they call it
nowadays--and in the virgin life. Shakers don't marry, nor give in
marriage. And we have all things in common. That's all, friend. You see,
we don't teach anything that Christ didn't teach, so she won't learn any
evil from us. Simple, ain't it?"

"Well, yes, after a fashion," Lewis Hall said; "but it isn't human."

And Brother Nathan smiled mystically. "Maybe that isn't against it, in
the long run," he said.

They came to the community in the spring twilight. The brothers and
sisters had assembled to meet the convert, and to give a neighborly hand
to the silent man who was to live by himself in a little, gray, shingled
house down on Lonely Lake Road. It was a supreme moment to Athalia. She
had expected an intense parting from her husband when they left their
own house; and she was ready to press into her soul the poignant thorn
of grief, not only because it would make her FEEL, but because it would
emphasize in her own mind the divine self-sacrifice which she wanted to
believe she was making. But when the moment came to close the door of
the old home behind them, her husband was cruelly commonplace about
it--for poor Lewis had no more drama in him than a kindly Newfoundland
dog! He was full of practical cares for his tenant, and he stopped even
while he was turning the key in the lock, to "fuss," as Athalia said,
over some last details of the transfer of the sawmill. Athalia could