smiling at me as if he had known me from my cradle. I knew, for Uncle Mark
had told me, that his name was Jonas Blake, that he was a Theological Student
from St. Columbia, and that he had taken charge of the Point Prospect Mission
Church for the summer.
“He is a very ugly young man—really, the ugliest young man I’ve ever seen.
He has a big, loose-jointed figure with absurdly long legs. His hair is tow-color
and lank, his eyes are green, and his mouth is big, and his ears—but I never
think about his ears if I can help it.
“He has a lovely voice—if you shut your eyes he is adorable—and he
certainly has a beautiful soul and disposition.
“We were good chums right way. Of course he is a graduate of Redmond, and
that is a link between us. We fished and boated together; and we walked on the
sands by moonlight. He didn’t look so homely by moonlight and oh, he was
nice. Niceness fairly exhaled from him. The old ladies—except Mrs. Grant—
don’t approve of Jonas, because he laughs and jokes—and because he evidently
likes the society of frivolous me better than theirs.
“Somehow, Anne, I don’t want him to think me frivolous. This is ridiculous.
Why should I care what a tow-haired person called Jonas, whom I never saw
before thinks of me?
“Last Sunday Jonas preached in the village church. I went, of course, but I
couldn’t realize that Jonas was going to preach. The fact that he was a minister
—or going to be one—persisted in seeming a huge joke to me.
“Well, Jonas preached. And, by the time he had preached ten minutes, I felt so
small and insignificant that I thought I must be invisible to the naked eye. Jonas
never said a word about women and he never looked at me. But I realized then
and there what a pitiful, frivolous, small-souled little butterfly I was, and how
horribly different I must be from Jonas’ ideal woman. SHE would be grand and
strong and noble. He was so earnest and tender and true. He was everything a
minister ought to be. I wondered how I could ever have thought him ugly—but
he really is!—with those inspired eyes and that intellectual brow which the
roughly-falling hair hid on week days.
“It was a splendid sermon and I could have listened to it forever, and it made
me feel utterly wretched. Oh, I wish I was like YOU, Anne.
“He caught up with me on the road home, and grinned as cheerfully as usual.
But his grin could never deceive me again. I had seen the REAL Jonas. I
wondered if he could ever see the REAL PHIL—whom NOBODY, not even
you, Anne, has ever seen yet.