Susannah was eating, and with relish. She laid down her bit of pumpkin pie and stared astonished. Then, being a girl of good sense and good feeling, she relinquished the remainder of her supper, and, following her aunt's example, knelt beside her chair.
The two candles and the firelight left shadowy spaces in parts of the room, and cast grotesque outlines against the walls. Nothing was familiar to Susannah's eye; she could not help looking about her. Ephraim was nearest to her. He was a bearded man, and seemed to her very old. She saw that his face looked pale and distressed; his eyes were closed, his lips tight set, like one bearing transient pain. At the end of the table her uncle knelt upright, with hands clasped and face uplifted, no feature or muscle moving—a strong figure rapt in devotion. On her other side, as a slight tree waves in the wind, her aunt's slim figure was swaying and bending with feeling that was now convulsive and now restrained. Sometimes she moaned audibly or whispered "Amen." Across the richly-spread table Susannah saw the preacher kneeling in a full flickering glare of the pine fire, one hand upon the brick jamb, the other covering his eyes, as if to hide from himself all things that were seen and temporal in order that he might speak face to face with the Eternal.
It was some time before she listened to the words of the prayer. When she heard Ephraim Croom spoken of by name, there was no room in her mind for anything but curiosity. After a while she heard her own name, and curiosity began to subside into awe. After this the preacher brought forward the case of Joseph Smith.
Before the prayer ended Susannah was troubled by so strong a sense of emotion that she desired nothing so much as relief. It seemed to her that the emotion was not so much in herself as in the others, or like an influence in the room pressing upon them all. At length a kitten that had been lying by the hearth got up as if disturbed by the same influence, and, walking round the room, rubbed its fur against Ephraim's knee. She saw the start run through his whole nervous frame. Opening his eyes, he put down his hand and stroked it. Susannah liked Ephraim the better for this. The kitten was not to be comforted; it looked up in his face and gave a piteous mew. Susannah tittered; then she felt sorry and ashamed.
CHAPTER II.
Two quiet years passed, and Susannah had attained her eighteenth birthday.
On a certain day in the week there befell what the aunt called a "season" of baking. It was the only occasion in the week when Mrs. Croom was sure to stay for some length of time in the same place with Susannah beside her. Ephraim brought down his books to the hospitable kitchen, and sat aloof at a corner table. He said the sun was too strong upon his upper windows, or that the rain was blowing in. The first time that Ephraim sought refuge in the kitchen Mrs. Croom was quite flustered with delight. She always coveted more of her son's society. But when he came a third time she began to suspect trouble.
Mrs. Croom stood by the baking-board, her slender hands immersed in a heap of pearly flour; baskets of scarlet currants lay at her feet. All things in the kitchen shone by reason of her diligence, and the windows were open to the summer sunshine. Susannah sat with a large pan of red gooseberries beside her; she was picking them over one by one. Somewhere in the outer kitchen the hired boy had been plucking a goose, and some tiny fragments of the down were floating in the air. One of them rode upon a movement of the summer air and danced before Susannah's eyes. She put her pretty red lips beneath it and blew it upwards.
Mrs. Croom's suspicions concerning Ephraim had produced in her a desire to reprove some one, but she refrained as yet.