After supper he had the chance to see Athalia and to make
sure that she was not looking tired. "You didn't take cold
yesterday, 'Thalia? I saw you were out in the rain," he would say.
And she, always a little embarrassed at such personal interest,
would reply, primly, "I am not at all tired, Brother Lewis."
Nathan used to walk home with his guest, and sometimes they
talked of work that must be done, and sometimes touched on more
unpractical things--those spiritual manifestations which at
rare intervals centred in Brother William and were the hope
of the whole community. For who could tell when the old
man's incoherent muttering would break into the clear speech
of one of those Heavenly Visitants who, in the early days,
had descended upon the Shakers, and then, for some divine
and deeply mysterious reason, withdrawn from such pure channels
of communication, and manifested themselves in the world,--
but through base and sordid natures. Poor, vague Brother William,
who saw visions and dreamed dreams, was, in this community,
the torch that held a smouldering spark of the divine fire,
and when, in a cataleptic state, his faint intelligence fluttered
back into some dim depths of personality, and he moaned
and muttered, using awful names with babbling freedom,
Brother Nathan and the rest listened with pathetic eagerness
for a _"thus saith the Lord,"_ which should enflame the gray
embers of Shakerism and give light to the whole world!
When Nathan talked of these things he would add, with a sigh,
that he hoped some day William would be inspired to tell them something
more of Sister Lydia: "Once William said, 'Coming, coming.'
_I_ think it meant Lydia; but Eldress thought it was Athalia;
it was just before she came." Brother Nathan sighed.
"I wish it had meant Lydy," he said, simply.