I've tried hard to be good, but
somehow I've made just such a mess of my life as I made of hulling the
berries. The bowl is broken, I haven't much fruit to show, and I am all
stained and draggled. I shouldn't have come to Albion on the
five-o'clock train--that was an accident; I meant to come at noon, when
you could turn me away if you wanted to."

"Nay, that is not the Shaker habit," remonstrated Abby. "You and the
child can sleep in one of the spare chambers at the Office Building and
be welcome."

"But I want much more than that," said Susanna, tearfully. "I want to
come and live here, where there is no marrying nor giving in marriage.
I am so tired with my disappointments and discouragements and failures
that it is no use to try any longer. I am Mrs. Hathaway, and Sue is my
child, but I have left my husband for good and all, and I only want to
spend the rest of my days here in peace and bring up Sue to a more
tranquil life than I have ever had. I have a little money, so that I
shall not be a burden to you, and I will work from morning to night at
any task you set me."

"I will talk to the Family," said Eldress Abby, gravely; "but there are
a good many things to settle before we can say yee to all you ask."

"Let me confess everything freely and fully," pleaded Susanna, "and if
you think I'm to blame, I will go away at once."

"Nay, this is no time for that. It is our duty to receive all and try
all; then if you should be gathered in, you would unburden your heart to
God through the Sister appointed to receive your confession."

"Will Sue have to sleep in the children's building away from me?"

"Nay, not now; you are company, not a Shaker, and anyway you could keep
the child with you till she is a little older; that's not forbidden at
first, though there comes a time when the ties of the flesh must be
broken! All you've got to do now's to be 'pure and peaceable, gentle,
easy to be entreated, and without hypocrisy.' That's about all there is
to the Shaker creed, and that's enough to keep us all busy."

Sue ran in from the porch excitedly and caught her mother's hand.

"The cows have all gone into the barn," she chattered; "and the Shaker
gentlemen are milking them, and not one of them is shaking the least
bit, for I 'specially noticed; and I looked in through the porch window,
and there is nice supper on a table--bread and butter and milk and
dried-apple sauce and gingerbread and cottage cheese. Is it for us,