in earnest.

"Are ministers like other men?" she asked, with a spice of genuine
curiosity in her question. The venerable pastor of the church which
she attended in New York had not seemed to belong to the same race
as herself. His hair was so white, his face so bloodless, his life
so saintly, and his sermons so utterly beyond her, that he appeared
as dim and unearthly as one of the Christian Fathers. A young
theologian on the way to that same ghostly state was an object
of piquant interest. She had never had a flirtation with a man of
this character, therefore there was all the zest of novelty. Had
she been less fearless, she would have shrunk from it, however, with
something of the superstitious dread that many have of jesting in
a church, or a graveyard. But there was a trace of hardihood in her
present course that just took her fancy. From lack of familiarity
with the class, she had a vague impression that ministers differed
widely from other men, and to bring one down out of the clouds as a
fluttering captive at her feet would be a triumph indeed. A little
awe mingled with her curiosity as she sought to penetrate the
scholastic and saintly atmosphere in which she supposed even an
embryo clergyman dwelt. She hardly knew what to say when, in reply
to her question, "Are ministers like other men?" he asked, "Why
not?"

"That is hardly a fair way to answer."

"You do not find me a mysterious being."

"I find you very different from other young men of my acquaintance.
What to me is a matter of course is dreadful to you. Then you ministers