"Will you pray too?" she asked, with a little choke in her voice.
"Would you have me read the prayers of the church?"
"No; the prayer of your own heart."
Then the man became rash.
"The prayer of my heart?" he repeated, with evident emotion. "The prayer of my heart? That prayer is that I may win your love, and your hand in marriage. That is my religion; you, I worship."
"Don't! Don't!" she said, withdrawing her hand from his arm. "Don't; that seems blasphemous."
"If you could only love me, I might begin to comprehend what you tell us of the love of God. I love you. That I know, I understand. You are the embodiment of all I hold sweet and dear. Can't you love me—sometime?"
"I do not know," she responded. "What I do know surely is that I do not love you now. I believe that love of the deep and abiding kind does not fall at man's feet as manna, nor does it grow like a mushroom in a night. It takes time for the mighty, resistless forces of nature to develop a single blade of grass. So love, I take it, must have time to grow."
"Then I may hope to win your love?" he said eagerly.
"Oh, no; don't think of love. You have my friendship; let us not spoil the friendship by dreaming of a love that I cannot give you."