ing-time had paused.
When love buds out thus late, when the opportunity for the woman's
nature to blossom comes unexpectedly upon one at her age, the temptation
is not easily resisted. Cynthy trembled, but did not quite yield up her
Christian constancy.

"Jonas, I don't know whether I'd orto or not. I don't deny--I think I'd
better ax brother Goshorn, you know, sence what would it profit ef I
gained you or any joy in this world, and then come short by settin' you
up fer a idol in my heart? I don't know whether a New Light is a
onbeliever or not, and whether I'd be onequally yoked or not. I must ax
them as knows better nor I do."

"Well, ef I'm a onbeliever, they's nobody as could teach me to believe
quicker'n you could. I never did believe much in women folks till I
believed in you."

"But that's the sin of it, Jonas. I'd believe in you, and you'd believe
in me, and we'd be puttin' our trust in the creatur instid of the
Creator, and the Creator is mighty jealous of our idols, and He would
take us away fer idolatry."

"No, but I wouldn't worship you, though I'd rather worship you than
anybody else ef I was goin' into the worshipin' business. But you see I
a'n't, honey. I wouldn't sacrifice to you no lambs nor sheep, I wouldn't
pray to you, nor I wouldn't kiss your shoes, like people does the
Pope's. An' I know you wouldn't make no idol of me like them Greek gods
that Andrew's got picters of. I a'n't handsome enough by a long shot fer
a Jupiter or a 'Pollo. An' I tell you, Cynthy, 'tain't no sin to love.
Love is the fullfilling of the law."

But Cynthy Ann persisted that she must consult Brother Goshorn, the
antiquated class-leader at the cross-roads. Brother Goshorn was a good
man, but Jonas had a great contempt for him. He was a strainer out of
gnats, though I do not think he swallowed camels. He always stood at the
door of the love-feast and kept out every woman with jewelry, every girl
who had an "artificial" in her bonnet, every one who wore curls, every
man whose hair was beyond what he considered the regulation length of
Scripture, and every woman who wore a veil. In support of this last
prohibition he quoted Isaiah iii, 23: "The glasses and the fine linen
and the hoods and the veils."

To him Cynthy Ann presented the case with much trepidation. All her
hopes for this world hung upon it. But this consideration did not
greatly affect Brother Goshorn. Hopes and joys were as nothing to him
where the strictness