easy till I had it gratified.  And it is now my constant hope that Harry will never put to sea again, but will be content to plough the kindly earth and gather in her fruits, instead of furrowing the barren cruel waves; sure he has had enough of strange adventures.  Yet I fear him sometimes, when little work is stirring; then he is so restless that even in his dreams he will talk of seafaring; I think, however, he will wander no more, so long as our father lives.

We get letters from Althea and her husband, at rare intervals indeed; but then they are long and ample.  And it is a marvel how stiffly Althea now stands for all the points of the Quaker doctrine, which formerly she so abhorred and contemned.

Not many days since there reached me a long letter from her, in which she told me indeed a great deal of news, and also expressed a wonderful sisterly affection; but the burden of it was her disquietude because of my religious errors.  She was very earnest with me upon the sin and danger of conforming to the world, in dress, and speech, and deportment.

There were things in this letter which really troubled me, so I carried it to Mr. Truelocke; and when he had read it, I asked his opinion, whether Christian folk were bound to observe such strictness as Althea now advocates and practises? at which, softly smiling, he said,—­

’"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”  I think thou art not far from exemplifying that pure religion in thine own life, daughter; so I trust does thy sister; but I think her not more free from world-spots than thee, because she perchance goes clad in grey, and thou in scarlet;’ for I had a new red cloak and hood upon me.  ‘This,’ he said, touching the cloak lightly, ’is no stain of scarlet sin, ‘tis honest dye-stuff, Lucy.’

‘It might make me vain and proud to go gaily, might it not?’ I said.

‘When it has that effect, child, renounce it as a snare,’ he replied.  ’I think thou art not over gay as yet, for a young wife, with a true-love husband to please.’

‘But besides these things,’ I said, ’there are others more serious.  See how my sister cries out against all set forms of worship, even to the singing of hymns; and how she accounts even the outward visible forms of the two great sacraments as having something of the nature of an idol that we sinfully adore.  All should be spiritual and inward, according to her, and to other Friends; and I do not myself understand how that can be.’

‘’Tis a great truth that they uphold,’ said he musingly, ’yet I cannot see that it includes all truth.  For my own share, I still hold fast to my opinions; they commend themselves to my reason as strongly as ever.  I should lie, did I deny them.  And yet from my very heart I agree with the Friends in prizing the spirit above the letter.  And I hope, my daughter,’ he