neighbouring hills under the pretext that treasure would be found
beneath the spot where they would at last drop exhausted; and there were
dark hints concerning benighted travellers who, staying all night at the
Smiths' cabin, had seen awful apparitions and been glad to fly from the
place, leaving their property behind. There was a story of diabolical
influence which Smith had exercised in order to gain the young wife whom
he had stolen from her father's roof, and, worse than all, there were
descriptions of occult rites carried on in secret places, where the
most bloody mysteries of the Mosaic priesthood were horribly travestied
by Smith and his friends, Cowdery and Rigdon, in order to dupe the
simple into belief in the new revelation.

Ephraim Croom had again withdrawn himself out of hearing of the
controversy. Judging that Susannah was sufficiently guarded by his
parents to be safe, he became almost oblivious of conversation which he
despised. He did not reflect that Susannah knew nothing of his hidden
conflict, that she could only perceive that, after uttering an ominous
warning, he had left her to work out its application alone.

It was at first not at all her liking for the Smiths, but only her
unbiassed common sense, which convinced her that the wild stories told
concerning them were untrue. When she became enraged at their untruth
she became more kindly disposed toward the young mother, whose baby had
made a strong appeal to her girlish heart, and the big kindly lout of a
man who had sheltered her from the rain. This benevolent disposition
might have slumbered unfruitful but for the memory of the fine and
resolute face of the young disciple who had promised to wrestle in
prayer for her. There was novelty in the thought. The gay witch Novelty
often apes the form of Love. Susannah did not know Love, so she did not
recognise even the vestments falsely worn, but they attracted her all