He was a shy man.

He seldom spoke of religion out of the pulpit; but all through these long months he preached it without words to Ruth, as she had never heard it preached before, by "The best portion of a good man's life-- His little, nameless, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love." It was the first time that she had come into close contact with a life spent for others, and its beauty appealed to her with a new force, and gradually but surely changed the current of her thoughts, until, as "we needs must love the highest when we see it," she unconsciously fell in love with self-sacrifice.
The opinions of most young persons, however loudly and injudiciously proclaimed, rarely do the possessors much harm, because they are not, as a rule, acted upon; but with some few people a change of views means a change of life.

Ruth was on the edge of a greater change than she knew.
At first she had often regretted the chapter of her life that had been closed by Lady Deyncourt's death.

Now, she felt she could not go back to it, and find it all-sufficient as of old.

It would need an added element, without which she began to see that any sort or condition of life is but a stony, dusty concern after all--an element which made even Mr.Alwynn's colorless existence a contented and happy one.
Ruth had been telling him one day, as they were walking together, of her sister's plans for the winter, and that she was sorry to think her time at Slumberleigh was drawing to a close.
"I am afraid," he said, "in spite of all you say, my dear, it has been very dull for you here.