,
then she burst into tears and covered her face with her apron. "I
could n't understand a single thing when I first came. I never had
been anywhere to see anything, and Miss Pyne frightened me when she
talked. It was you made me think I could ever learn. I wanted to keep
the place, 'count of mother and the little boys; we 're dreadful hard
pushed. Hepsy has been good in the kitchen; she said she ought to have
patience with me, for she was awkward herself when she first came."

Helena laughed; she looked so pretty under the tasseled white curtains.

"I dare say Hepsy tells the truth," she said. "I wish you had told me
about your mother. When I come again, some day we 'll drive up
country, as you call it, to see her. Martha! I wish you would think
of me sometimes after I go away. Won't you promise?" and the bright
young face suddenly grew grave. "I have hard times myself; I don't
always learn things that I ought to learn, I don't always put things
straight. I wish you would n't forget me ever, and would just believe
in me. I think it does help more than anything."

"I won't forget," said Martha slowly. "I shall think of you every
day." She spoke almost with indifference, as if she had been asked to
dust a room, but she turned aside quickly and pulled the little mat
under the hot water jug quite out of its former straightness; then she
hastened away down the long white entry, weeping as she went.

III.

To lose out of sight the friend whom one has loved and lived to please
is to lose joy out of life. But if love is true, there comes presently
a higher joy of pleasing the ideal, that is to say, the perfect friend.
The same old happiness is lifted to a higher level. As for Martha, the
girl who stayed behind in Ashford, nobody's life could seem duller to
those who could not understand; she was slow of step, and her eyes were
almost always downcast as if intent upon incessant toil; but they
startled you when she looked up, with their shining light. She was
capable of the happiness of holding fast to a great sentiment, the
ineffable satisfaction of trying to please one whom she truly loved.
She never thought of trying to make other people pleased with herself;
all she lived for was to do the best she could for others, and to
conform to an ideal, which grew at last to be like a saint's vision, a
heavenly figure painted upon the sky.

On Sunday afternoons in summer, Martha sat by the window of her