"
"Nay, it is too late," Nathan answered drearily. "They could not help us, and
we should be held under suspicion forever after."
"I feel so wicked and miserable and unfaithful, I don't know what to do!"
sobbed Hetty.
"Yee, so do I!" the lad answered. "And I feel bitter against my father, too.
He brought me here to get rid of me, because he did n't dare leave me on
somebody's doorstep. He ought to have come back when I was grown a man and
asked me if I felt inclined to be a Shaker, and if I was good enough to be
one!"
"And my stepfather would n't have me in the house, so my mother had to give me
away; but they're both dead, and I'm alone in the world, though I've never
felt it, because the Sisters are so kind. Now they will hate me--though they
don't hate anybody."
"You've got me, Hetty! We must go away and be married. We'd better go tonight
to the minister in Albion."
"What if he would n't do it?"
"Why should n't he? Shakers take no vows, though I feel bound, hand and foot,
out of gratitude. If any other two young folks went to him, he would marry
them; and if he refuses, there are two other ministers in Albion, besides two
more in Buryfield, five miles farther.
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