Perhaps a few children
whispered, or a baby cried and its mother took it out. Everybody
seemed happy and astir. After church there was so much handshaking
that the house emptied very slowly.
But on his return he described the Quaker meeting to aunt Corinne.
"They all sat and sat," said Bobaday. "It was a little bit of a
house and not half so many folks could get in it as sit in the
corners by the pulpit in Methodist meeting. And they sat and sat, and
nobody said a word or gave out a hymn. The women looked at the cracks
in the floor. You could hear everything outdoors. After a long time
they all got up and shook hands. Mrs. Sebastian said to Mr. Sebastian
when we came away, 'The spirit didn't appear to move anybody this
morning.' And he said, 'No: but it was a blessed meeting.'"
"Didn't your legs cramp?" inquired aunt Corinne.
"Yes; and my nose tickled and I wanted to sneeze."
"But you dursn't move your thumb even. That lawyer that ate supper
here last night would like such a meeting, wouldn't he?"
The lawyer was coming up the log steps while Robert spoke of him.
And with him was a lady who looked agitated, and whom he had to assist.
Robert and Corinne, at the open sitting-room window, looked at each
other with quick apprehension.
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