or twice she burst into impetuous appreciation of the idea
of brotherhood, and even of certain theological principles--
which last diverted her husband very much. Eldress Hannah showed
them the dairy, and the work-room, and all there was to see,
with a patient hospitality that kept them at an infinite distance.
She answered Lewis's questions about the community with
a sad directness.

"Yee; there are not many of us now. The world's people say we're
dying out. But the Lord will preserve the remnant to redeem
the world, young man. Yee; when they come in from the world
they cast their possessions into the whole; we own nothing,
for ourselves. Nay; we don't have many come. Brother William
was the last. Why did he come?" She looked coldly at Athalia,
who had asked the question. "Because he saw the way to peace.
He'd had strife enough in the world. Yee," she admitted, briefly,
"some fall from grace, and leave us. The last was Lydia.
She was one of our children, and I thought she was of the chosen.
But she was only thirty when she fell away, and you can't
expect wisdom at that age. That was nearly twenty years ago.
When she has tasted the dregs of the world she will come back to us--
if she lives," Eldress Hannah ended.

Athalia listened breathlessly, her rapt, unhumorous eyes fixed
on Eldress Hannah's still face. Now and then she asked a question,
and once cried out that, after all, why wasn't it the way to live?
Peace and self-sacrifice and love! "Oh," she said,
turning to her husband, "can't you feel the attraction of it?
I should think even you could feel it!"