The stalwart deacon in overalls, his excitable, slender wife, her cap-strings flying, came forth, the one from the barn, the other from her bake-house.
It was not to either of these worthy souls that Finney intended first to confide the story of his glimpse of Susannah.

It said much for the sterling truth of this man's soul that, accustomed as he was to demand from himself and others public confession of those experiences most private to the individual soul, he had not lost delicacy of feeling or reverence for individual privacy in human relationships.

He had not been at this house since the month after Susannah's departure, when excitement and wrath still raged concerning her.

He judged that in the hearts of the older members the wound had healed, leaving only the healthy scar that such sorrows leave in busy lives.

He knew, too, that in Ephraim's heart the blade of this grief had cut deeper.
The supper over, the full moon already gilding the last hour of the summer daylight, Ephraim donned his hat to take the solitary evening stroll to which he had become accustomed.