Before her she saw no face but that of the minister, between which and her, beyond the front of the gallery, lay a gulfy space, where, down in the bottom, sat other listening souls, with upturned faces and eyes, unseen of Annie, all their regards converging upon the countenance of the minister.

He was a thin-faced cadaverous man, with a self-severe saintly look, one to whom religion was clearly a reality, though not so clearly a gladness, one whose opinions-vague half-monstrous embodiments of truth--helped to give him a consciousness of the life which sprung from a source far deeper than his consciousness could reach.

I wonder if one will ever be able to understand the worship of his childhood--that revering upward look which must have been founded on a reality, however much after experience may have shown the supposed grounds of reverence to be untenable.

The moment Annie looked in the face of Mr Brown, she submitted absolutely; she enshrined him and worshipped him with an awful reverence.

Nor to the end of her days did she lose this feeling towards him.