She had already in mind what she would do with this money; she would write to the booksellers in Boston who fulfilled Ephraim’s orders, and obtain from them some of the books whose names she remembered to have seen on his shelves.  She knew nothing of their contents, she hardly knew whether she wanted them more for the sake of their contents or for their familiar appearance, but she thought that if she did not understand them when reading, she could write to Ephraim and ask for an explanation.  She could not think of any other excuse for writing to him again.  It had taken her a good many months to think of this one.

Halsey, who had learned to drop the Quaker forms of speech when speaking to others, still, moved by the remembrances of his early home, used them in speech to Susannah.  He inquired somewhat anxiously concerning the proposed purchase.

“Dost think that they will contain what the prophet has called ’sound learning,’ and that there will be nothing in them to distract thy soul?”

“How can I tell when I do not know what is in them?” She did not speak with impatience.

“Art wise, dear heart, in this longing?” he asked wistfully.

Then he carried away her order and despatched it.

In the meantime Smith had returned from Missouri, his mind filled and, as it were, enlarged by the new land which he said was appointed by revelation as the site of the New Jerusalem.  Jackson County, on the south bank of the Missouri River, was the place.  He had already gathered four or five hundred new converts there, and he was now possessed with the desire for money to build the new city, and for a million proselytes to dwell in it.  In spite of this, after sending out new relays of missionaries in all directions, he settled down to the most sober routine of study.  Hebrew was the new language he wished to acquire, and he felt the call to revise the Old Testament.

CHAPTER II.

Only one unusual incident occurred in Susannah’s presently peaceful life.  One day in the golden October she set out to walk some distance up the valley of the Chagrin River.  The object of the walk was a visit to one of the outlying farmhouses occupied by a family of the Saints; but Susannah, as was her wont, found more joy in the walk than in the visit.  When she had passed beyond the meeting of the waters, the valley lay long before her, about a mile in width and quite flat.  The stream was scarcely seen; the ground was covered with flowery weeds, white asters with their myriad tiny stars, the pale seed feathers of the golden rod, high grasses, and wild things innumerable which had been turned brown and gray by the autumn sun, pink clumps of the rice weed, and small groves of the scarlet stalks of the wild buckwheat.  This level sea of weeds stood so high that when she threaded the narrow path they reached above her waist.  The bees in the white asters were humming as they hum