ely
to please me?"

The old man's hand fell on my shoulder. "I miss you," he said, simply.
"I miss you all the time. You see, I love you." Then, with precipitate
selfconsciousness, he closed the door of his New England heart, and from
some remote corner of it sent out his cautious after-thought. "I love
you," he repeated, primly, "as a sister in the Lord."

Relief Paine lived in Brewster. Her name seemed prophetic, and she once
told me that she had always considered it so. Her brother-in-law was my
Sunday-school superintendent, and her family belonged to my church. Very
soon after my arrival in East Dennis I went to see her, and found
her, as she always was, dressed in white and lying on a tiny white bed
covered with pansies, in a room whose windows overlooked the sea. I
shall never forget the picture she made. Over her shoulders was an
exquisite white lace shawl brought from the other side of the world by
some seafaring friend, and against her white pillow her hair seemed the
blackest I had ever seen. When I entered she turned and looked toward
me with wonderful dark eyes that were quite blind, and as she talked her
hands played with the pansies around her. She loved pansies as she loved
few human beings, and she knew their colors by touching them. She was
then a little more than thirty years of age. At sixteen she had fallen
downstairs in the dark, receiving an injury that paralyzed her, and
for fifteen years she had lain on one side, perfectly still, the Stella
Maris of the Cape. All who came to her, and they were many, went away
the better for the visit, and the mere mention of her name along the
coast softened eyes that had looked too bitterly on life.

Relief and I became close friends. I was greatly drawn to her, and
deeply moved by the tragedy of her situation, as well as by the
beautiful spirit with which she bore it. During my first visit I regaled
her with stories of the community and of my own experiences, and when I
was leaving it occurred to me that possibly I had been rather frivolous.
So I said:

"I am coming to see you often, and when I come I want to do whatever
will interest you most. Shall I bring some books and read to you?"

Relief smiled--the gay, mischievous little smile I was soon to know so
well, but which at first seemed out of place on the tragic mask of her
face.

"No, don't read to me," she decided. "There are enough ready to do that.
Talk to me. Tell me about our life and our people