with Aunt Sloman: indeed, Sophia--that's the one you saw--is a great
friend of Aunt Maria's."

"So the lady-abbess confessed, did she?" I asked with some curiosity.

"Yes: she said you were rudely inquisitive; but she excused you as
unfamiliar with Shaker ways."

"And were you really at Watervliet?"

"Yes, but don't be in a hurry: we'll come to that presently. Sophia
gave me a pretty little room opening out of hers, and they all treated
me with great kindness, if they _did_ call me Eliza."

"And did you," I asked with some impatience, remembering Hiram's
description--"did you sew beads on velvet and plait straw for mats?"

"Nonsense! I did whatever I pleased. I was parlor-boarder, as they say
in the schools. But I did learn something, sir, from that dear old
sister Martha. You saw _her_?"

"The motherly body who invited me in?"

"Yes: isn't she a dear? I took lessons from her in all sorts of
cookery: you shall see, Charlie, I've profited by being a Shakeress."

"Yes, my darling, but did you--you didn't go to church?"

"Only once," she said, with a shiver that made her all the dearer,
"and they preached such dreary stuff that I told Sophia I would never