Forty-three years seems like a long time to remember the name of a mere acquaintance. I have forgotten the name of an old lady, who was a customer on the paper route in my home town when I was a twelve-year-old boy. Yet it stays in my memory, for she taught me a lesson of forgiveness that I shall never forget. On a winter afternoon, a friend and I were throwing stones onto the leaning roof of the old lady's house from a spot near her backyard. The object of our play was to observe how the stones changed to missiles as they rolled to the roof's edge and shot out into the yard. I found myself a perfectly smooth rock and threw it out. The stone, however, slipped from my hand and headed straight for a small window on the old lady's back porch. At the sound of fractured glass, we knew we were in trouble. We ran as fast as possible. I was too scared about getting caught to be concerned about the old lady with the broken window in winter. However, a few days later, when I was sure that I hadn't been discovered, I started to feel guilty for her misfortune. She still greeted me with a smile each day when I gave her the paper, but I was no longer able to act comfortably in her presence.  I made up my mind that I would save my paper delivery money, and after three weeks I had the seven dollars that I thought would cover the cost of her window. I put the money in an envelope with a note explaining that I was sorry for breaking her window and hoped that the seven dollars would cover the cost. I put the letter through the letter slot in her door. My soul felt  _ and I could have the freedom of, once again, looking straight into the old lady's kind eyes. The next day, I handed the old lady her paper and was able to return the warm smile that I was receiving from her. She gave me a bag of cookies. I thanked her and felt an envelope in it. When I opened the envelope, inside it were the seven dollars and a short note reading, "I'm proud of you." How old is the writer now?   _
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