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."

I had leisure to observe the apartment--the neatly-scrubbed floor,
with one narrow cot bed against the wall, a tall bureau on which some
brown old books were lying, and the little dust-pan and dust-brush on
a brass nail in the corner. There was a brightly polished stove with
no fire in it, and some straight-backed chairs of yellow wood stood
round the room. An open