little home-school, one of
his pupils was this same Lucy Read, now a tall, beautiful girl with
glossy brown hair, large blue eyes and a fine complexion, the belle of
the neighborhood. The inevitable happened, childish feuds were
forgotten, and teacher and pupil decided to become husband and wife.
Then arose a formidable difficulty. The Anthonys were Quakers, the
Reads were Baptists, and a Quaker was not permitted to "marry out of
meeting." Love laughed at rules and restrictions eighty years ago, just
as it does to-day, and Daniel refused to let the Society come between
him and the woman of his choice, but Lucy had many misgivings. Thanks
to her father's ideas she had been brought up in a most liberal manner,
allowed to attend parties, dance and wear pretty clothes to her heart's
content, and it was a serious question with her whether she could give
up all these and adopt the plain and severe habits of the Quakers. She
had a marvelous voice, and, as she sang over her spinning-wheel, often
wished that she might "go into a ten-acre lot with the bars down" so
that she could let her voice out to its full capacity. The Quakers did
not approve of singing, and that pleasure also would have to be
relinquished. That the husband could give up his religious forms and
accept those of the wife never had been imagined.

Love finally triumphed, and the young couple were married July 13,
1817. A few nights before the wedding Lucy went to a party and danced
till four o'clock in the morning, while Friend Daniel sat bolt upright
against the wall and counted the days which should usher in a new
dispensation. A committee was sent at once to deal with Daniel, and
Lucy always declared he told them he "was sorry he married her," but he
would say, "No, my dear, I said I was sorry that in order to marry the
woman I loved best, I had to violate a rule of the religious society I
revered most." The matter was carefully talked over by the elders, and
as he had said he was sorry he had to violate the rule, and as the
family was one of much influence, and as he was their most highly
educated and cultivated member, it was unanimously decided not to turn
him out of meeting.[2] Lucy learned to love the Friends' religion and
often said she was a much more consistent Quaker than her husband, but
she never became a member of the Society, declaring she was "not good
enough." She did not use the "plain language," though she always
insisted that her husband sho