Mr. Van Dam knew nothing of her, except that she
was very pretty and came from Colorado where she had been brought up to
like horses, and could ride almost any thing that would not buck its
saddle off. This was quite enough for Mr. Van Dam whose taste for horses
was more decided than for literature or art. He took Catherine to drive
when the sleighing was good, and was flattered by her enthusiastic
admiration of his beautiful pair of fast trotters. His confidence in her
became boundless when he found that she could drive them quite as well
as he. His success in winning her affections would have been greater if
Catherine had not found his charms incessantly counteracted by the
society of the older and more intelligent men, whom she never met at
balls, but whom she saw every morning at the church, and whose tastes
and talk struck her imagination. She liked Mr. Van Dam, but she laughed
at him, which proved a thoughtless mind, for neither artists, clergymen
nor professors were likely to marry her, as this young man might perhaps
have done, under sufficient encouragement. When, towards the first of
January, Catherine left Mrs. Murray, in order to stay with Esther, for
greater convenience in the church work, Mr. Van Dam's attentions rather
fell off. He was afraid of Esther, whom he insisted on regarding as
clever, although Esther took much care never to laugh at him, for fear
of doing mischief.

Catherine learned to play whist in order to amuse Mr. Dudley. They had
small dinners, at which Hazard was sometimes present, and more often
Strong, until he was obliged to go West to deliver a course of lectures
at St. Louis. In spite of Mr. Dudley's supposed dislike for clergymen,
he took kindly to Hazard and made no objection to his becoming a tame
cat about the house. To make up a table at whist, Hazard did not refuse
to take a hand; and said it was a part of his parochial duty. Mr. Dudley
laughed and told him that if he performed the rest of his parochial
duties equally ill, the parish should give him a year's leave of absence
for purposes of study. Mr. Dudley disliked nothing so much as to be
treated like an invalid, or to be serious, and Hazard gratified him by
laughing at the doctors. They got on wonderfully well together, to the
increasing amazement of Esther.

Card-playing and novel-reading were not the only cases in which Mr.
Hazard took a liberal view of his functions. His theology belonged to
the high-church school, and