With the first drowsy twitterings of the birds, when the crescent-shaped
openings in the board shutters began to define themselves clearly in the
shadowy room, they arose and went about their morning tasks in silence.
Friend Barton's step was a little heavier than usual, and the hollows
round his wife's pale brown eyes were a little deeper. As he sat on the
splint-bottomed chair by the kitchen fireplace, drawing on his boots, she
placed her hands on his shoulders, and touched with her cheek the worn spot
on the top of his head.

"Thee will lay this concern before meeting to-morrow, father?"

"I had it on my mind to do so,--if my light be not quenched before then."

Friend Barton's light was not quenched. Words came to him, without
seeking,--a sure sign that the Spirit was with him,--in which to "open the
concern" that had ripened in his mind, of a religious visit to the meeting
constituting the yearly meetings of Philadelphia and Baltimore. A "minute"
was given him, encouraging him in the name, and with the full concurrence,
of the monthly meetings of Nine Partners and Stony Valley, to go wherever
the Truth might lead him.

While Friend Barton was thus freshly anointed, and "abundantly encouraged,"
his wife, Rachel, was talking with Dorothy, in the low upper chamber known
as the "wheel-room."

Dorothy was spinning wool on the big wheel, dressed in her light calico
short gown and brown quilted petticoat; her arms were bare, and her hair
was gathered away from her flushed cheeks and knotted behind her ears. The
roof sloped down on one side, and the light came from a long, low window
under the eaves. There was another window (shaped like a half-moon, high