"Do you know," she said, shyly, "it's very strange, but you are the only man I have ever met to whom I could speak with confidence of the subject nearest my heart."
"And what may that be?" he asked, a ray of light and hope illumining his face.
"It is the realization of the love of the Unseen and Eternal. More to me than the sweetest earthly tie is One whom having not seen I love."
"It is all a mystery to me," he said. "In fact it is incomprehensible how anyone can manifest such enthusiasm and devotion to One unknown. Though I learned at mother's knee that 'man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.' I have never been able to get beyond the theory of it."
"I am sorry for you," she said, her voice trembling with disappointment.
For several minutes neither spoke, when Chrissy said, slowly and thoughtfully:
"How oblivious the mineral kingdom is to the life of the world above it, and the vegetable kingdom to that of the animal. How much more so the man or woman having a mere physical existence to the life of the spiritual. They have not the faculty of comprehending its joys or its privileges any more than a stone can appreciate a flower, or a flower appreciate science or art. My heart yearns with unutterable pity for anyone to whom Christ and the things of the spiritual world are not a reality."
George made no response, and as they had reached the door of the Colonel's quarters, he grasped her hand.
"Chrissy, Chrissy," he said, "I must go. I dare not trust myself to speak," and he left her standing on the door-step.
The happy holidays had slipped away all too soon. Chrissy stood by a window gazing at the panorama before her. The moonlight poured through the window, filling the room with a soft radiance which rested upon her head with a kind of halo. The indescribable beauty of the scene without faded into insignificance compared with the scene which George Morrison contemplated—a young woman whose pure heart was mirrored in the beauty of her face and breathed in every accent of her gentle voice. Her earnest blue eyes looked as though they could see into that other world of which she so often spoke. Never before had he beheld a life so filled with fascinating grace as to pervade every gesture and accent. Never had he met a soul so permeated with love and devotion to God, and withal so simple, so natural, so sweet.