the same. Her young blood boiled when her aunt, dimly discerning some
unlooked-for obstinacy in her niece's mind, repeated each new report in
disfavour of the Mormons. It was the old story about the blood of the
martyrs, for ridicule and slander spill the pregnant blood of the soul;
but they who believe themselves to be of the Church can seldom believe
that any blood but their own will bear fruit. Every stab given to the
reputation of the Smiths was an appeal to Susannah's sympathy for them.
Mrs. Croom, with a sense of solemn responsibility, was at great cost
bringing all her influence to bear upon the young girl whom her son
loved. She drearily said to herself, after many days, that her influence
was weak, that it accomplished nothing. The strength of it pushed
Susannah, who stood faltering at the parting of the ways, and the
impetus of that push was felt in her rapid and unsteady step for many
and many a year.

One day, when the men were out cutting the maize, Susannah rode with her
uncle to the most distant of his fields, and found herself on the hill
called in Smith's revelation Cumorah.

The sound of the men at work and the horses shaking their harness was
close in her ears while she strayed over this bit of hilly woodland. It
is one of the low ridges that intersect the meadows on the banks of the
Canandaigua, and here Smith professed to have found the golden book. It
was because of this that Susannah had the curiosity to climb it now.

The beech wood grew thick upon it; the afternoon sun struck its slant
sunbeams across their boles. Once, where the beeches parted, she came
upon a fairy glade where two or three maples, fading early, had carpeted
the ground with a mosaic of gold and red, and were holding up the
remainder of their foliage, pink and yellow, in the light. The beauty