Litreading - Classic Short Stories

The critics call Jerome Wilmer a wizard. They say he doesn't paint faces — he paints hopes, fears, and longings, and that no secret survives sitting for one of his portraits. Home from Paris for his annual New England summer, Wilmer has spent ten years asking Mary Brinsley the same question and getting the same gentle answer. This year, he sets up a canvas in the barn and asks her fiancé to sit instead. Alice Brown's "The Wizard's Touch" (1906) is a quiet story about love, rivalry, and what a portrait really shows — the person you are, or the person you might become. Carefully selected and beautifully narrated by Don McDonald, LitReading brings classic literature back to life — read out loud the way it was meant to be heard. New stories every week.About the author: Alice Brown (1857–1948) was born on a farm in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, and became one of New England's most admired writers of her era. After moving to Boston in 1884, she produced nearly a book a year for five decades — novels, play