ent sister did inclose
some imponderable unmounted photograph, with comments. The sister at
home, studying these one by one, learned almost more of the meaning of
the pictures than the one who saw their visible beauty. One of my
friends says, "There is nothing which so destroys the aesthetic sense as
to see too many beautiful pictures at once." This truth, perhaps,
explains why so many people see all the great paintings of the world and
yet have so little appreciation of any of them. At all events, our
invalid did gain both happiness and spiritual insight from the hints of
beauty she found in these humble little photographs.

I have before said that she was not left without companions. She also
had friends in the highest sense. Having the leisure to make friendship
a chief business of life she was able to be so much to her friends that
however busy they might be they could not afford to neglect her. The day
of leisurely letter writing seems to have passed by. But she had long
hours by herself when she could write out the good and pleasant things
she was thinking about. Her letters were lovely, and strong, and
helpful, and each was written with such exquisite penmanship, with such
easy lines of beauty, that it was like a work of art in itself.

She was not obliged even to forego the happiness of love. She had a
young lover at the time her health failed. He would not believe at first
that there was no cure for her. Her instinct had been so true that she
had chosen a perfectly loyal lover whose love could not be shaken by
misfortune. At last he was himself attacked by a terrible disease, and
it was seldom possible for the two to meet after that. But they faced
their trouble together. They said that if the time should ever come
when they could be married they should rejoice; but if it never came
they would be all they could to each other. Sometimes even letters were
impossible between them, but their perfect reliance upon each other was
a constant source of strength and happiness, and their rare interviews
were true radiant points in their lives.

Of course no one would think of calling this woman's life a narrow one,
and yet the only reason it was not so lay in herself.

I know another woman whose poverty would seem to many people an
effectual bar to any breadth of life. As poverty is a relative term, I
will state definitely that she receives less than three hundred dollars
a year for teaching a difficult village school