One afternoon the two friends sat idly watching the soft play of the waves on the beach when Mabel suddenly said, “Do you know, Etta, if it were not for my father I believe I should never wish to leave Kaahlanai, but as it is I long for something to happen that I may once more see my father.” “I feel as you do, Mabel. It is so pleasant here with these days of perpetual summer. There seems a feeling of perfect contentment to steal over one without one’s knowing why it is.” “The reason is, I think,” replied Mabel, “that we have constantly around us those who are contented and happy, and there is nothing so contagious as contentment. They live to enjoy the beauties of God’s handiwork instead of striving continually after empty honors. To satisfy their eyes no painter’s skill is needed. They have but to look about them at dawn, when the first warm rays of sunlight bathe their home in a flood of beauty, or watch the soft little rain clouds as they drift slowly up from the south, and when it finally descends upon the grateful land in a shower of radiance, hanging glistening jewels on every branch and leaf, tipping with diamonds every trembling blade of grass, and watch the glorious hues of the rainbow, that arches in its loveliness their fair land. To watch the showers here fills my heart with a feeling of surprise at the beauty of it all.” “Do you feel that way, too, Mabel?” broke in Etta, “I did not like to speak of it for fear you would laugh at my foolish notions, but that is just the way I have come to feel. And, do you know I could never see anything pretty in rain before? I always hated to see it rain at home, but here it is as you say, a shower of radiance.” “Then,” continued Mabel, “the evenings! If the days are filled with loveliness, how much more the nights? Ah! At sunset to watch the sun, slowly losing itself in the sea, and as it sinks, throwing broad beams of shimmering crimson light far over the gently dappling waves until it reaches the shore line, as if it had stretched out a loving hand to give a gentle good-night touch with warm fingers to the land on which, all days in the year, the sun smiles. And then, after the sun has sunk to rest, to watch the pure cold moon appear, like a silver cimeter laid against the background of dark, rich plush of deepest blue, and see the twinkling worlds wake up one after another. I never see the stars appear here but what I think of that sweet little couplet: ‘Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the Angels.’