more, as had happened after her divorce, of the need of a closer and more individual sympathy than any at her command.  Her relations with Mr. Parsons, to be sure, approximated those of father and daughter, but his perceptions were much less acute than before his seizure; he talked little and ceased to take a vital interest in current affairs.  She felt the lack of companionship and, also, of personal devotion, such personal devotion as was afforded by the strenuous, ardent allegiance of a man.  On the other hand she was firmly resolved never to allow the current of her own life to be turned away again by the subordination of her purposes to those of any other person, and she had believed that this resolution would keep her indifferent to marriage, in spite of any sensations of loneliness or craving for masculine idolatry.  But as a widow of a year’s standing she was now suddenly interested by the thought that this solid, ambitious, smooth-talking man might possibly satisfy her natural preference for a mate without violating her individuality.  She began to ask herself if he were not truly congenial in a sense which no man had ever been to her before; also, to ask if their aspirations and aims were not so nearly identical that he would be certain as her husband to be proud of everything she did and said, and to allow her to work hand in hand with him for the furtherance of their common purpose.  She did not put these questions to herself until his conduct suggested that he was seeking her society as a suitor; but having put them, she was pleased to find her heart throb with the hope of a stimulating and dear discovery.

Certain causes contributed to convince her that this hope rested on a sure foundation—­causes associated with her present life and point of view.  She felt confident first of all of the godliness of Mr. Lyons as indicated not only by his sober, successful life, and his enthusiastic, benignant patriotism, but by his active, reverent interest in the affairs of his church—­the Methodist Church—­to which Mr. Parsons belonged, and which Selma had begun to attend since her return to Benham.  It had been her mother’s faith, and she had felt a certain filial glow in approaching it, which had been fanned into pious flame by the effect of the ministration.  The fervent hymns and the opportunities for bearing testimony at some of the services appealed to her needs and gave her a sense of oneness with eternal truth, which had hitherto been lacking from her religious experience.  In judging Wilbur she was disposed to ascribe the defects of his character largely to the coldness and analyzing sobriety of his creed.  She had accompanied him to church listlessly, and had been bored by the unemotional appeals to conscience and quiet subjective designations of duty.  She preferred to thrill with the intensity of words which now roundly rated sin, now passionately called to mind the ransom of the Saviour, and ever kept prominent the stirring mission of evangelizing ignorant foreign people.  It appeared probable to Selma that, as the wife of one of the leading church-members, who was the chairman of the local committee charged with spreading the gospel abroad, her capacity for doing good would be strengthened, and the spiritual availability of them both be enhanced.