Athalia was hardly referred to, except when they told him that they would
take good care of her, and when Brother Nathan volunteered a brief summary
of Shaker doctrines--"so as you can feel easy about her," he explained:
"We believe that Christ was the male principle in Deity, and Mother Ann
was the female principle. And we believe in confession of our sins,
and communion with the dead--spiritualism, they call it nowadays--
and in the virgin life. Shakers don't marry, nor give in marriage.
And we have all things in common. That's all, friend. You see,
we don't teach anything that Christ didn't teach, so she won't learn
any evil from us. Simple, ain't it.?"

"Well, yes, after a fashion," Lewis Hall said; "but it isn't human."

And Brother Nathan smiled mysti-cally. "Maybe that isn't against it,
in the long run," he said.


They came to the community in the spring twilight.
The brothers and sisters had assembled to meet the convert,
and to give a neighborly hand to the silent man who was to live by
himself in a little, gray, shingled house down on Lonely Lake Road.
It was a supreme moment to Athalia. She had expected an intense
parting from her husband when they left their own house;
and she was ready to press into her soul the poignant
thorn of grief, not only because it would make her FEEL,
but because it would emphasize in her own mind the divine
self-sacrifice which she wanted to believe she was making.
But when the moment came to close the door of the old home
behind them, her husband was cruelly commonplace about it--for poor
Lewis had no more drama in him than a kindly Newfoundland dog!