Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/395

Rh where everything was neat and convenient. Sister Lavinia took us particularly under her charge.

Some streaks of light in the west at sunset had led me to hope for a bright morrow, and they did not deceive me. The brightest of suns shone the next morning over the Shaker-dwellings and the pastoral pleasing country which surrounded them, and a considerable portion of which belonged to their community. Not a single dwelling except their own was to be seen in that solitary region; and the whole scene which more immediately surrounded these, was altogether as quiet and as orderly, as if a life of labour did not exist there. It was altogether so calm and silent that it almost struck the mind as something spiritual.

After breakfast, which the sisters served in an excellent and bountiful manner, we were asked if we would like to see the school, and on answering in the affirmative, we were conducted into a spacious hall, in which about twenty little well-dressed girls were receiving instruction from a female teacher. This teacher, whom I will call Dora, was still quite young, and of singular beauty, neither had her complexion that paleness, so common among women of this community; her cheeks were fresh as the blush of morning, and more beautiful eyes than hers I never beheld.

She allowed the little girls to show us one of their symbolic games. They placed themselves in a wide circle, each one standing at three or four paces distant from the other. They then began to sing very sweetly little verses, which, though I cannot give with literal accuracy, were in substance as follows:—

On this each little girl approached the one nearest to