Classicly

The Alchemist's Secret is a fiction story written by Isabel Cecilia Williams.

Excerpts:

He sighed again as he turned up over the hill to the left and started for home. It had been a long, cold walk down to the village, and it would be equally long and even colder on the way back, for a sharp wind was blowing directly in his face. It was a bad night for an old man like Tony to be abroad and he was almost sorry that he had ventured out. But there was his promise to Martha; it would never do to break that. Martha had always been of a more hopeful turn of mind than he, anyway. While she was still alive she had imparted to him the same spirit of trust and hopefulness which shone in her steady gray eyes, but since God had taken Martha and left him all alone in the world of care and trouble, life had been hard indeed.