If Lewis wished it had meant Lydy, he did not say so.
And, indeed, he said very little upon any subject;
Brother Nathan did most of the talking.

"I fled from the City of Destruction when I was thirty,"
he told Lewis; "that was just a year before Sister Lydy left us.
Poor Lydy! poor Lydy!" he said. "Oh, yee, _I_ know the world.
I know it, my boy! Do you?"

"Why, after a fashion," Lewis said; and then he asked, suddenly, "Why did
you turn Shaker, Nathan?"

"Well, I got hold of a Shaker book that set me thinking.
Sister Lydia gave it to me. I met Sister Lydia when she
had come down to the place I lived to sell baskets.
And she was interested in my salvation, and gave me the book.
Then I got to figuring out the Prophecies, and I saw Shakerism
fulfilled them; and then I began to see that when you don't
own anything yourself you can't worry about your property;
well, that clinched me, I guess. Poor Sister Lydia, she didn't
abide in grace herself," he ended, sadly.

"I should have thought you would have been sorry then,
that you--" Lewis began, but checked himself. "How about"--
he said, and stopped to clear his voice, which broke huskily;--
"how about love between man and woman? Husband and wife?"

"Marriage is honorable," Brother Nathan conceded; "Shakers don't
despise marriage. But they like to see folks grow out of it