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"Now, Susan Spray—you start copying from here, and mind what I told you about slanting your letters."
And Susan would write with eyes and tongue close to the page—
"I saw a mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire:—and he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea and his left foot on the earth, and cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices."
Sometimes at night she would be frightened at the morning's task. She would dream of angels like flames, of shining hearts and moving mountains and falling stars, of old men with long beards, who wagged their heads at her. She would cry out, and ask to come into her parents' bed, where she would lie warm between them, and dream only of hens clucking in the barnyard, of cows being milked, of loaves being taken out of the oven.
At school she was accounted a good, quick child, and Miss Sarah was pleased with her obedience and application. But she held the tales that the Colgate Brethren spread about her as mere ranters' nonsense. Susan herself said nothing about her experiences. She soon realized that the other children—unconverted souls in stocky little bodies—would only mock her for them. So she kept silence, but in her heart she sometimes brooded with pride, and in meeting she always wore a devout, dreamy look. She did not stare about her or fidget, like the other children, though she never managed again to fall down in a fit and have a vision of Ezekiel's temple. Perhaps for that it was necessary that she should stare into a couple of glowing contemptuous eyes like Joe Springett's. . . .