ith my sails all down," I explained.

"Have I?" he replied pleasantly. "Well, I like sails down."

"Please do not think," I continued, "that I am often guilty of such a
thing as this. I'm not. Who was that woman anyhow?"

"Oh, don't blame her," he laughed, and he stepped forward to look at the
picture which I had been staring at. I was busy putting away my
handkerchief. "Who was that woman?" Mr. Jennings repeated, abruptly
turning away from the picture back to me, "Who was she? I'll tell you
who she was--a good angel. Why," he went on, "I'd got into the way of
thinking that sympathy as expressed by tears had gone out of style with
the modern girl. They never shed any at the theater nowadays, I notice.
I'm glad to know there is one who hasn't forgotten how."

I stepped forward then to find out what manner of picture it was to
cause such a tribute to be paid me. It was called "The Doctor." A crude
bare room was depicted. The light from a lamp on an old kitchen table
threw its rays on the turned-aside, face of a little girl, who lay
asleep--or unconscious--on an improvised bed made of two chairs drawn
together. Beyond the narrow confines of the cot the little girl's hand
extended, wistfully upturned. Seated beside her, watching, sat the big
kind doctor. Anxiety, doubt were in his intelligent face. Near an east
window, through which a streak of dawn was creeping, sat a woman, her
face buried in the curve of her arms folded on the table. Beside her
stood a bearded man, brow furrowed, his pleading eyes upon the doctor,
while his hand, big, comforting, rested on the woman's bowed shoulders.
A cup with a spoon in it, a collection of bottles near-by--all the poor,
human, useless tools of defense were there, eloquent of a long and
losing struggle. Every one who recalls the familiar picture knows what a
dreary, hopeless scene it is--the room stamped with poverty, the window
stark and curtainless, the woman meagerly clad, the man bearing the
marks of hardship.

Suddenly in the face of all that, Mr. Jennings softly exclaimed, "That's
living."

Only five minutes ago I had said the same thing of life at Grassmere.

"Is it?" I replied. "Is that living? I've been wondering lately. I
thought--I thought--it's so poor and sad!" I remonstrated.

"Poor! Oh, no, it's rich," he replied quickly, "rich in everything worth
while. Anyhow, only lives that are vacuums are free from sadness."

"Are lives that are vacuums free from happiness,