There was a stern light of prophecy in the old man's eyes.
"Maybe Walter Evesham would take it down," said Rachel, leaning back wearily and closing her eyes. "I never was much of a hand to argue, even if I had the strength for it; but it would hurt me a good deal—I must say it—if thee denies Dorothy in this matter, Thomas. It's a very serious thing to have old folks try to turn young hearts the way they think they ought to go. I remember now,—I was thinking about it last night, and it all came back as fresh! I don't know that I ever told thee about that young friend who visited me before I heard thee preach at Stony Valley? Well! father, he was wonderful pleased with him, but I didn't feel any drawing that way. He urged me a good deal, more than was pleasant for either of us. He wasn't at all reconciled to thee, Thomas, if thee remember."
"I remember," said Thomas Barton, "it was an anxious time."
"Well dear, if father had insisted, and sent thee away, I can't say but life would have been a very different thing to me."
"I thank thee for saying it, Rachel." Friend Barton's head drooped between his hands.
"Thee's suffered much through me; thee's had a hard life, but thee's been well beloved."
The flames leaped and flickered in the chimney, they touched the wrinkled hands, whose only beauty was in their deeds; they crossed the room and lit the pillows where, for three generations, young heads had dreamed, and gray heads had watched and suffered; then they mounted to the chimney and struck a gleam from the sword.
"Well, father," said Rachel, "what answer is thee going to give Walter Evesham?"
"I shall say no more, my dear. Let the young folks have their way. There's strife and contention enough in the world without my stirring up more. And it may be I'm resisting the Master's will; I left her in His care: this may be His way of dealing with her."
Walter Evesham did not take down his grandfather's sword. Fifty years later another went up beside it,—the sword of a young Evesham who never left the field of Shiloh; and beneath them both hangs the portrait of the Quaker grandmother, Dorothy Evesham, at the age of sixty-nine.