ould, it certainly never could have been
asserted of him that he went there only to see Phebe. Indeed, he often
scarcely spoke with her at all when he so dropped in, and yet out of
these frequent and informal meetings an intimacy had sprung up between
them such as Phebe at least had never known before. She submitted herself
to him docilely, reading his books patiently even when they bored her
unutterably, as not seldom happened, and endeavoring to form her opinion
straitly upon his on all intellectual questions, recognizing her own
fallibility with a humility that at once touched and charmed him. Real
humility is rare enough the world over, but nowhere is it less
conspicuously apparent than among the flourishing virtues of Joppa; and
it was not long before this fact was discovered by Denham Halloway, who,
with all his gayety and light-heartedness, was a keen and discriminating
observer of character. He was one of those interesting people whom all
other people interest; one of those who derive their peculiar charm more
from what they find in you than from what they show you of themselves,
though one might be ashamed to confess the truth so baldly. These are the
people who, without any especial gift of either mind or person, wheedle
your secrets out of you before you know it, possessing all your trust and
your liking before they have given any real evidence of deserving your
confidence, and yet, somehow or other, though rarely either great or
talented, or even heroically good, never for one moment abusing it. Such
characters are not at all unusual, yet are generally accounted so; one of
their chief qualities, according to their friends, being that they are so
unlike everybody else. But Phebe certainly had never met any one at all
like Mr. Halloway, and she was soon of the settled conviction that she
should never meet any one quite like him again. He was true to his
promise to help her; (he never made a promise that he did not honestly
try to keep;) and he applied himself to the by no means thankless task
with the good-humored directness and energy that characterized all his
actions. There was quite a number of young girls in his parish, more
proportionately than in the others. Bell Masters and Amy Duckworth had
long been hovering on its borders, and the advent of so young and
prepossessing a rector had instantly removed their last scruples as to
infant baptism, and settled forever their doubts as to the apostolic
succession