Joshua Haggard's Daughter

On a calm Sunday at Penmoyle, Joshua Haggard's preaching fills the church with force and grandeur, urging sacrifice, faith, and tangible offerings for a new chapel. By invoking Solomon's temple, he turns a practical fund-raising appeal into a vision of sacred beauty, and the villagers respond with pride as much as piety. Cynthia, listening in awe, begins to see Joshua as a figure of rare greatness, almost saintly in his conviction and power. When the service gives way to tea, village politeness quickly reveals its comic rivalries, prejudices, and assumptions about marriage and women, while Joshua unexpectedly defends Cynthia with passionate sincerity. As their connection deepens, Joshua and Cynthia move from guarded conversation to a moonlit confession in the woods. He struggles to decide whether his love is blessing or temptation before asking her to marry him; she answers with humble devotion, calling herself his servant and giving him her whole heart. Their engagement becomes a solemn, life-changing turning point, framed by reflections on the purity and fragility of human love. Meanwhile, the household continues its quiet rhythms, where talk of money, shopkeeping, duty, and domestic comfort contrasts with Cynthia's yearning for spiritual purpose and sacrifice, and with other marriages shaped by faith, respect, and the passage of time. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.