In the mean while she was an angel, a lily, a pearl, a star, and several other things, animal, vegetable, and mineral, which his vivid imagination chose to picture her.

But whatever Dare's faults may have been--and Ruth was not blind to them--he was at least head over ears in love with her, fortune or none; and as his attachment deepened, it burned up like fire all the little follies with which it had begun.
A clergyman has been said to have made love to the helpmeet of his choice out of the Epistle to the Galatians.

Dare made his out of material hardly more promising--plans for cottages, and estimates of repairs.

He had quickly seen how to interest Ruth, though the reason for such an eccentric interest puzzled him.

However, he turned it to his advantage.