One Easter Sunday morning, the day after my annual Christian Science Students Association meeting, I was seated at a restaurant counter in a large city, having breakfast before going to church. Because my thought was uplifted by all I had heard the day before, by the anticipation of the church service, and by a book on Christian Science that I was reading, I hardly noticed the woman taking the stool beside me until she began to talk. She looked like a stereotypical street person—knit cap, drab clothes, shopping bag stuffed with papers, and little coin purse through which she fumbled. She started a conversation, first with the waiter, then with me, saying, "Holidays depress me, don't they you?"
"No," I replied, "I think today is wonderful."
"Well, I don't," she said, and proceeded to pour forth her dissatisfaction with her unkind relatives.
