plain and never of bright colors, but heavy and soft and shining; and
laces that were like fleecy clouds when they are just scattering. I should
like to be perfectly beautiful, and to have perfectly beautiful people
around me. But all this doesn't make me one bit less contented. I care
just as much for my few little, old books, and my two or three pictures,
and our beds of sweet-williams and pinks. They all give me such pleasure
that I'm just glad I'm alive every minute.--What are you thinking of, Mr.
Allen!" exclaimed Mercy, breaking off and coloring scarlet, as she became
suddenly aware that her pastor was gazing at her with a scrutinizing look
she had never seen on his face before.

"Of your future life, Mercy,--of your future life. I am wondering what it
will be, and if the dear Lord will carry you safe through all the
temptations which the world must offer to one so sensitive as you are to
all its beauties," replied Mr. Allen, sadly. Mercy was displeased. She was
always intolerant of this class of references to the Lord. Her sense of
honesty took alarm at them. In a curt and half-petulant tone, she
answered,--

"I suppose ministers have to say such things, Mr. Allen; but I wish you
wouldn't say them to me. I do not think that the Lord made the beautiful
things in this world for temptations; and I believe he expects us to keep
ourselves out of mischief, and not throw the responsibility on to him!"

"Oh, Mercy, Mercy! don't say such things! They sound irreverent: they
shock me!" exclaimed Mr. Allen, deeply pained by Mercy's tone and words.

"I am very sorry to shock you, Mr. Allen," replied Mercy, in a gentler
tone. "Pray forgive me. I do not think, however, there is half as much
real irreverence in saying that the Lord expects us to look out for
ourselves and keep out of mischief as there is in teaching that he made a
whole world full of people so weak and miserable that they couldn't look
after themselves, and had to be lifted along all the time."

Mr. Allen shook his head, and sighed. When Mercy was in this frame of
mind, it was of no use to argue with her. He returned to the subject of
her poetry.

"If you will keep on reading and studying, Mercy, and will compel yourself
to write and rewrite carefully, there is no reason why you should not have
a genuine success as a writer, and put yourself in a position to earn
money enough to buy a great many comforts and pleasures for yourself, and
your mother also," he