ach 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 chick like yourself, but that shall
not injure him in my eyes. Tell him to wait a while, and then come and
show himself. Two heads are better than one in most of the exigencies of
life, and when he comes, you and I can make up our minds about him at
our leisure."

The girl's mind had reverted, _a propos_ of nothing, to that concluding
sentence of her father's letter, which she had read at the time with an
indulgent but incredulous smile. Presently she became aware that her
companion was speaking again.

"It is all one," he was saying. "What we see and what we imagine; what
we aspire to, and what has been the aspiration of other men in other
ages. And how _good_ it all is!"

This he added with a certain turn and gesture which made the words
intensely personal. Why did they repel her so strongly, she wondered,
and wondering, she failed to answer. Involuntarily she had slackened her
horse's pace, and fallen in line with the others, and when Jack Hersey
rode up at that moment, she gave him a look of welcome which had the
effect of making him more mercurial than ever for the rest of the day.

"I say, Amy," he cried; "isn't this a dandy day?" and Amy felt herself
on good, homely, familiar ground, and she answered him with a heart
grown suddenly light as his own.

Stephen Burns, meanwhile, r