and the Quietness."

It was the pleasant custom of the community to arrive at the
meeting-house some fifteen or twenty minutes before the usual time of
meeting, and exchange quiet and kindly greetings before taking their
places on the plain benches inside. As most of the families had lived
during the week on the solitude of their farms, they liked to see their
neighbors' faces, and resolve, as it were, their sense of isolation into
the common atmosphere, before yielding to the assumed abstraction
of their worship. In this preliminary meeting, also, the sexes were
divided, but rather from habit than any prescribed rule. They were
already in the vestibule of the sanctuary; their voices were subdued and
their manner touched with a kind of reverence.

If the Londongrove Friends gathered together a few minutes earlier on
that September First-day; if the younger members looked more frequently
towards one of the gates leading into the meeting-house yard than
towards the other; and if Abraham Bradbury was the centre of a larger
circle of neighbors than Simon Pennock (although both sat side by
side on the highest seat of the gallery),--the cause of these slight
deviations from the ordinary behavior of the gathering was generally
known. Abraham's son had died the previous Sixth-month, leaving a widow
incapable of taking charge of his farm on the Street Road, which
was therefore offered for rent. It was not always easy to obtain a
satisfactory tenant in those days, and Abraham was not more relieved
than surprised on receiving an application from an unexpected quarter. A
strange Friend, of stately appearance, called upon him, bearing a letter
from William Warner, in Adams County, together with a certificate from
a Monthly Meeting on Long Island. After inspecting the farm and making
close inquiries in regard to the people of the neighborhood, he accepted
the terms of rent, and had now, with his family, been three or four days
in possession.

In this circumstance, it is true, there was nothing strange, and the
interest of the people sprang from some other particulars which had
transpired. The new-comer, Henry Donnelly by name, had offered, in place
of the usual security, to pay the rent annually in advance; his
speech and manner were not, in all respects, those of Friends, and he
acknowledged that he was of Irish birth; and moreover, some who had
passed the wagons bearing his household goods had been struck by the
peculiar patter