Lewis Hall's face suddenly sobered.
He had not stumbled along behind her in all her emotional experiences
without learning to read the guide-posts to her thought.
"I hope she'll get through with it soon," he said to himself,
with a worried frown; "it isn't wholesome for a mind like 'Thalia's
to dwell on this kind of thing."
It was in November that she broke to him that she had written
Eldress Hannah to ask if she might come and visit the community,
and had been answered "Yee."
Lewis was silent with consternation; he went out to the sawmill
and climbed up into the loft to think it all out alone.
Should he forbid it? He knew that was nonsense; in the first place,
his conception of the relation of husband and wife did not include
that kind of thing; but more than that, opposition would, he said
to himself, "push her in." Not into Shakerism; "'Thalia couldn't
be a Shaker to save her life," he thought, with an involuntary smile;
but into an excited discontent with her comfortable, prosaic life.
No; definite opposition to the visit must not be thought of--but he must
try and persuade her not to go. How? What plea could he offer?
His own loneliness without her he could not bring himself to speak of;
he shrank from taking what seemed to him an advantage.
He might urge that she would find it cold and uncomfortable in those old
frame houses high up on the hills; or that it would be bad for her
health to take the rather wearing journey at this time of year.
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