ilt a homestead and a meeting-house. Why don't his grandson hang
up his old broad-ax and ploughshare, and worship _them_, if he must
have idols, instead of that symbol of strife and bloodshed. Does thee
want our Dorothy's children to grow up under the shadow of that sword?"

There was a stern light of prophecy in the old man's eyes.

"Maybe Walter Evesham would take it down," said Rachel, leaning back
wearily and closing her eyes. "I never was much of a hand to argue,
even if I had the strength for it; but it would hurt me a good deal--I
must say it--if thee denies Dorothy in this matter, Thomas. It's a very
serious thing to have old folks try to turn young hearts the way they
think they ought to go. I remember now,--I was thinking about it last
night, and it all came back as fresh! I don't know that I ever told
thee about that young friend who visited me before I heard thee preach
at Stony Valley? Well! _father, he_ was wonderful pleased with him, but
I didn't feel any drawing that way. He urged me a good deal, more than
was pleasant for either of us. He wasn't at all reconciled to thee,
Thomas, if thee remember."

"I remember," said Thomas Barton, "it was an anxious time."

"Well dear, if father _had_ insisted, and sent thee away, I can't say
but life would have been a very different thing to me."

"I thank thee for saying it, Rachel." Friend Barton's head drooped
between his hands.

"Thee's suffered much through me; thee's had a hard life, but thee's
been well beloved."

The flames leaped and flickered in the chimney, they touched the
wrinkled hands, whose only beauty was in their deeds; they crossed the
room and lit the pillows where, for three generations, young heads had
dreamed, and gray heads had watched and suffered; then they mounted to
the chimney and struck a gleam from the sword.

"Well, father," said Rachel, "what answer is thee going to give Walter
Evesham?"

"I shall say no more, my dear. Let the young folks have their way.
There's strife and contention enough in the world without my stirring
up more. And it may be I'm resisting the Master's will; I left her in
His care: this may be His way of dealing with her."

Walter Evesham did not take down his grandfather's sword. Fifty years
later another went up beside it,--the sword of a young Evesham who
never left the field of Shiloh; and beneath them both hangs the
portrait of the Quaker grandmother, Dorothy Evesham, at the age of
sixty-nine.

T