Page:Peak and Prairie (1894).pdf/355

 ful and real than the sacred city of the Hebrews. Each had its own significance and value in his estimation, as a dream, an aspiration of the human mind.

It was what seemed to Amy Lovejoy the originality and daring of the young minister's views of things high and low, which had at first fascinated the girl. She had never before met with just that type of thinker,—indeed she had never before associated on equal terms with any thinker of any type whatever!—and it was perhaps no wonder that she had been inclined to identify the priest with his gospel, that she had been ready to accept both with equal trust. In fact, nothing but her father's cautious reluctance had deterred her from pledging herself, four months ago, to this grave-eyed cavalier, riding now so confidently by her side.

She was her father's only child, and since the death of her mother, some ten years previous to this, she had been called upon to fill the important position of "apple of the eye" to a secretly adoring, if somewhat sarcastic parent.

"Your parson may be all very well," the doctor had written, "but if he is worth having he will keep! He must have the advantage of extreme youth, to be taken with a callow