"This story," said Kate Douglas Wiggin, "could never have been written had I not as a child and girl been driven once a year to the Shaker meeting at the little village of Alfred, sixteen miles distant. The services were then open to the public... I learned to know the brethren and sisters, and the Elder, as years went by, and often went to the main house to spend a day or two as the guest of Eldress Harriet, a saint, if ever there was one, or, later, with dear Sister Lucinda... "Needless to say, I read every word of the book to my Shaker friends before it was published. They took a deep interest in it, evincing keen delight in my rather facetious but wholly imaginary portrait of 'Brother Ansel, ' a 'born Shaker, ' and sadly confessing that my two young lovers, 'Hetty' and 'Nathan, ' who could not endure the rigors of the Shaker faith and fled together in the night to marry and join the world's people, —that this tragedy had often occurred in their community."