The House with the Mezzanine by Anton Chekhov

Now we saw each other often, sometimes twice a day. Almost every day, after dinner, she drove up to the cemetery and, as she waited for me, read the inscriptions on the crosses and monuments. Sometimes she came into the church and stood by my side and watched me working. The silence, the simple industry of the painters and gilders, Radish's good sense, and the fact that outwardly I was no different from the other artisans and worked as they did, in a waistcoat and old shoes, and that they addressed me familiarly--were new to her, and she was moved by it all. Once in her presence a painter who was working, at a door on the roof, called down to me: "Misail, fetch me the white lead."

I fetched him the white lead and as I came down the scaffolding she was moved to tears and looked at me and smiled: "What a dear you are!" she said.