"
Brother Nathan looked at her over his spectacles, and one of the sisters
opened her eyes.
"I don't see why she should," Eldress Hannah added.
Two of the old brothers nodded agreement.
"The curiosity of the world's people does not help their souls,"
said one of the knitters.
"She thinks we walk in the Way to Peace," said the Eldress.
"Yee; we do," said Brother George.
"Shall I tell her 'nay'?" the Eldress questioned, calmly.
"Yee," said Brother George; and the dozing sisters murmured "Yee."
"Wait," said Brother Nathan; "her husband--HE has something to him.
Let her come."
"But if she visited us, how would that affect him?"
Eldress Hannah asked, surprised into faint animation.
"If she was moved to stay it would affect him," Brother Nathan said,
dryly; "he would come, too, and there are very few of us left, Eldress.
He would be a great gain."
There was a long silence. Brother William's gray head sagged on
his shoulder, and the hymn-book slipped from his gnarled old hands.
The knitting sisters began, one after another, to stab their needles
into their balls of gray yarn and roll their work up in their aprons.
"It's getting late, Eldress," one of them said, and glanced
at the clock.
"Then I'll tell her she may come?" said Eldress Hannah, reluctantly.
"He can make the wrath of man to praise Him," Brother Nathan
encouraged her.
"Yee; but I never heard that He could make the foolishness of woman
do it," the old woman said, grimly.
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