And she, with prim intensity, would reply, "Good-evening, BROTHER Lewis."

If one of the sisters was with her, they would stop and speak to him;
otherwise she passed him by in such an eager consciousness of her
part that he smiled--and then sighed. When she had a companion,
Lewis and the other Shakeress would gossip about the weather
or the haying, and Lewis would have the chance to say:
"You're not overworking, 'Thalia? You're not tired?" While Athalia,
in her net cap and her gray shoulder cape buttoned close up to her chin,
would dismiss the anxious affection with a peremptory "Of course not!
I have bread to eat you know not of, Brother Lewis."
Then she would add, didactically, some word of dogma or admonition.

But she had not much time to give to Brother Lewis's salvation--
she was so busy in adjusting herself to her new life.
Its picturesque details fascinated her--the cap, the brevity of speech,
the small mannerisms, the occasional and very reserved mysticism,
absorbed her so that she thought very little of her husband.
She saw him occasionally on those walks down to the lake,
or when, after a day in the fields with the three old Shaker men,
Brother Nathan brought him home to supper.

"We Shakers are given to hospitality," he said; "we're always
looking for the angel we are going to entertain unawares.
Come along home with us, Lewis." And Lewis would plod up
the hill and take his turn at the tin washbasin, and then
file down the men's side of the stairs to the dining-room,
where he and the three old brothers sat at one table,
and Athalia and the eight sisters sat at the other table.