neckerchief folded precisely over her straitened bust, a clear-muslin
cap concealing her hair, and her face, stony, blue-eyed and cold--a
pale, frozen woman standing stately there.

"Bessie Stewart?" said I. "She is here--I know it. Do not detain her.
I must see her. Why all this delay?"

"Dost thou mean Sister Eliza?" she asked in chilling tones.

"No, nobody's sister--least of all a sister here--but the young lady
who came over here from Lenox two months ago--Bessie Stewart, Mrs.
Sloman's niece." (I knew that Mrs. Sloman was quite familiar with some
of the Shakeresses, and visited them at times.)

Very composedly the sister took a chair and folded her hands across
her outspread handkerchief before she spoke again. I noticed at this
moment that her dress was just the color of her eyes, a pale, stony
blue.

"Sister Eliza: it is the same," in measured accents. "She is not here:
she has gone--to Watervliet."

Can this be treachery? I thought, and is she still in the house? Will
they hide from her that I am here? But there was no fathoming the
woman's cold blue eyes.

"To Watervliet?" I inquired dismally. "How? when? how did she go?"

"She went in one of our wagons: Sister Leah and Brother Ephraim went
along."