andeur of
nature, reading the lofty thoughts of the poets. And after that Job
thought the preacher at Gold City was a little old fogyish.

Dan Dean was not slow to observe the unconscious drifting of Job away
from the church and toward the schoolma'am. Jane did not notice it
till Dan hinted to her that the only reason Job had cared for the
church was because she went there, and now that Miss Bright had come
he had dropped her and the church both. Which was so near the truth
that Jane began to feel strange when Job was near, and to do what she
had never dreamed of doing before with a single human being--she began
to doubt the occasional kind words he now gave her, and all he had
ever uttered. With the impulse of a wounded heart, she turned to Dan.
Yet try the best she could, she could never feel the same toward him.
She pitied Dan; a philanthropic feeling animated her as she thought of
him. She would do anything to make a man of him--marry him, even, if
necessary; but to think of surrendering her life and very being to
him, following him down the tortuous path of life, "For better or for
worse, for richer or poorer," to have him as her ideal of
manhood--that thought repelled her. Often she found herself standing
behind a tree on the way home from school, waiting to catch one
glimpse of Job as he sauntered by with Miss Bright's cloak on his arm
and its owner chattering at his side. She was angry to think she did
it; she ran home by the short cut through the woods, slammed the cabin
door behind her, threw herself on the bed and had a good cry, arose
and wiped the tears away, and vowed she would marry Dan if he asked
her.

Job unconsciously walked into the meshes that fate seemed to have
thrown around him. More and more he transferred the admiration of his
heart to the stately, proud, talented girl of the world, who found him
a convenient escort and companion in the mountain country where
friends that suited her were scarce. Job was blind; he adored her.
Later and later, daily, was his return from school. The little
Testament grew dusty on the box-table in his bedroom, his morning
prayers sounded strangely alike, and even Andy Malden wondered at the
coldness of the lad's devotion at family worship. He went to church,
but seldom to class-meeting. He devoured a book Miss Bright had loaned
him, on "The World's Saviors--Buddha, Mohammed, Christ,"--in which he
found his Master placed on a level with other great souls. He asked