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NOTABLE IRISHWOMEN.
49

from Babylon to Bethel,' an allegory I by no means understood. Believing the whole to be literally true, I was wonderfully desirous to see that house which was to be the end and reward of so wearisome a journey. I frequently ascended a sloping flower bank in the garden, to gaze with awe and admiration at a house called Willowbank, which I thought was at such a distance that it must be the object of my ardent desires. How I was undeceived I know not, but undeceived I was, and on my grandfather's return from the London yearly meeting, thinking that Bethel was surely the object of such a long journey, I approached him with the inquiry if he had seen God's house."

First day, with its meetings and its long spells of silence, stood out prominently in the little Quaker girl's experiences. Sitting on her bench, she learned to love casement windows, for "one of these used to admit the light to each end of our meeting-house, and has often beguiled the lonesome hours by throwing the shadow of the trees in the grove in a fanciful manner to my view when seated in silence. Sometimes I thought these reflections of light and shade belonged to heaven and heavenly things, and I looked upon them with awe."

At that time, so our Quaker authoress informs us, a bright light-green silk apron was