she had been reared upon simple food; her figure, slight, supple and
well proportioned. She was eighteen. Her beautiful brown eyes wore a
sweetly serious look. She had thought as a woman. She was pious, but
somehow when she wandered through the woods, and noted how the wild
flowers smiled upon her, and listened to the birds as they shook their
very throats for joy, she could only think of the love, not the anger of
God. God was good. His purpose was loving. How warm and beautiful and
sweet was the sun! The sky was blue, and was there not away beyond the
blue a place where the tears that stained the cheek down here would be
all wiped away? Sorrow! Oh, yes, there was sorrow here, and somehow, the
dearest things we yearned for were denied us. There were heavy burdens
to bear, and life's contrasts were agonizing, and faith staggered a
little; but when Minnie went to the woods with these thoughts, and
looked into the timid eye of the violet, she said to herself softly,
"God is love."

A simple creature, you see, and not at all clever. I doubt if she had
ever heard of Herbert Spencer, much less read his works. If you had told
that she had been evolved from a jelly-fish, her brown eyes would only
have looked at you wonderingly. You would have conveyed nothing to her.

I must tell you that Minnie was romantic. The woods had bred in her the
spirit of poetry. She loved during the holidays to go to the woods with
a book, and, seating herself at the foot of a tree, give herself up
to dreams--of happy, innocent love, and of calm life, without cloud,
blessed by the smile of heaven.



Love is a sudden, shy flame. Love is a blush which mounts to the cheek,