He was a rough
diamond, but he was a diamond, and was typical of the West--its heart,
its courage, its freedom, and its force; capable of exquisite gentleness,
strenuous to exaggeration, with a very primitive religion; and the only
religion Tim knew was that of human nature. Jansen did not think Tim
good enough--not within a comet shot--for Laura Sloly; but they thought
him better than any one else.
But now Laura was a convert to the prophet of the Healing Springs,
and those people who still retain their heads in the eddy of religious
emotion were in despair. They dreaded to meet Laura; they kept away from
the "protracted meetings," but were eager to hear about her and what she
said and did. What they heard allayed their worst fears. She still
smiled, and seemed as cheerful as before, they heard, and she neither
spoke nor prayed in public, but she led the singing always. Now the
anxious and the sceptical and the reactionary ventured out to see and
hear; and seeing and hearing gave them a satisfaction they hardly dared
express. She was more handsome than ever, and if her eyes glistened with
a light they had never seen before, and awed them, her lips still smiled,
and the old laugh came when she spoke to them.
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