"I remember that the garden was beautiful, and that thee spoke as though
thee was part of the garden. Thee remembers that, at our meeting in the
Cloistered House, when the woman was ill, I had no faith in thee; but
thee spoke with grace, and turned common things round about, so that they
seemed different to the ear from any past hearing; and I listened. I did
not know, and I do not know now, why it is my duty to shun any of thy
name, and above all thyself; but it has been so commanded by my father
all my life; and though what he says may be in a little wrong, in much it
must ever be right."

"And so, from a hatred handed down, your mind has been tuned to shun even
when your heart was learning to give me a home--Faith?"

She straightened herself. "Friend, thee will do me the courtesy to
forget to use my Christian name. I am not a child-indeed, I am well on
in years"--he smiled--"and thee has no friendship or kinship for warrant.
If my mind was tuned to shun thee, I gave proof that it was willing to
take thee at thine own worth, even against the will of my father, against
the desire of David, who knew thee better than I--he gauged thee at first
glance."

"You have become a philosopher and a statesman," he said ironically.
"Has your nephew, the new Joseph in Egypt, been giving you instructions
in high politics? Has he been writing the Epistles of David to the
Quakers?"

"Thee will leave his name apart," she answered with dignity. "I have
studied neither high politics nor statesmanship, though in the days when
thee did flatter me thee said I had a gift for such things. Thee did not