persecuted sect sought comfort from its pages.

He who listened, while the other read, was the master of the
house, now emaciated in form, and altered as to the expression
and healthiness of his countenance; for his mind had dwelt too
long among visionary thoughts, and his body had been worn by
imprisonment and stripes. The hale and weather-beaten old man who
sat beside him had sustained less injury from a far longer course
of the same mode of life. In person he was tall and dignified,
and, which alone would have made him hateful to the Puritans, his
gray locks fell from beneath the broad-brimmed hat, and rested on
his shoulders. As the old man read the sacred page the snow
drifted against the windows, or eddied in at the crevices of the
door, while a blast kept laughing in the chimney, and the blaze
leaped fiercely up to seek it. And sometimes, when the wind
struck the hill at a certain angle, and swept down by the cottage
across the wintry plain, its voice was the most doleful that can
be conceived; it came as if the Past were speaking, as if the
Dead had contributed each a whisper, as if the Desolation of Ages
were breathed in that one lamenting sound.

The Quaker at length closed the book, retaining however his hand
between the pages which he had been reading, while he looked
steadfastly at Pearson. The attitude and features of the latter
might have indicated the endurance of bodily pain; he leaned his
forehead on his hands, his teeth were firmly closed, and his
frame was tremulous at intervals with a nervous agitation.

"Friend Tobias," inquired the old man, compassionately, "hast
thou found no comfort in these many blessed passages of