"Can you imagine feeling so about any one?" asked Mr. Grey.
"I can imagine it. Do you suppose that Mr. Tennyson's friend was really so much to him?"
"Perhaps," he said gravely. "I'll tell you, Miss Clifford, what I think about that. It is not right to feel so about anybody, because that is exactly the way we ought to feel about God. Don't you see that it is? If everything reminded us of him, it would be just right."
"I can't believe it would be possible to make God so personal to us. We think naturally of what we know and have seen, not of what we merely believe in."
"Ah! but God may be 'personal to us,' as you say. You forget that he is near us, with us, and even in us. That would be the only way, it seems to me, of loving him with our mind, and soul, and strength, because we can't help loving all this beauty in everything. Just as Tennyson says,
'My love involves the love before,
I seem to love thee more and more.'"
There was a bough of deep-red leaves overhead, and I looked longingly at it, for they were just the color that I liked to wear in my hair; yet I did not want to ask for it, lest Mr. Grey should think that I had not been attending to him. He must have seen the look, though, for he jumped out of the buggy and ran up the bank to get the branch. I stopped the horse, thinking, as I watched the capturing of the prize, "I might have known my wish would be anticipated. Every one but he waits to be asked and thanked." When he came back, I told him I was tired of driving, and asked him to take the reins.
"May I spin the drive out?" he asked. "You are not in a hurry to have it over, are you? Do you know it is the only time we have ever driven together?"
"Why, I thought we had taken a great many other drives. What are you thinking of?"
"We have driven often, as you say, with parties of other people, but have we ever taken a drive by ourselves before?"