a gathering light

only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity and am not sure about the former
-Albert Einstein

Reading one of those Reader's Digest collections...it had a brilliant story called A Gathering Light by Jennifer Donnely..partly based on facts and partly fiction its the story of Mathilda Gonke who while working at her family farm and later at a hotel called Gilmore dreams of going to college and reading Dickinson while taking care of a hungry family battling with poverty.Circumstances force her to abandon her dream and live as a farm girl when one of the guests at the hotel gives her a bunch of letters to burn.The next day the guests dies by drowning and Mathilda goes through her letters.What she finds changs her life forever.
Its not a soapy mushy book but more of little women era and the letters will haunt you as you imagine a poor frightened girl begging her beau to come back..more so when you are told they are true.