nto any relation
with Stephen White, if it could be avoided. She was heartily glad that she
had not been in the house when he called. And yet, had she been in the
habit of watching her own mental states, she would have discovered that
Stephen White was very much in her thoughts; that she had come to
wondering why she never met him in her walks; and, what was still more
significant, to mistaking other men for him, at a distance. This is one of
the oddest tricks of a brain preoccupied with the image of one human
being. One would think that it would make the eye clearer-sighted,
well-nigh infallible, in the recognition of the loved form. Not at all.
Waiting for her lover to appear, a woman will stand wearily watching at a
window, and think fifty times in sixty minutes that she sees him coming.
Tall men, short men, dark men, light men; men with Spanish cloaks, and men
in surtouts,--all wear, at a little distance, a tantalizing likeness to
the one whom they in no wise resemble.

After such a watching as this, the very eye becomes disordered, as after
looking at a bright color it sees a spectrum of a totally different tint;
and, when the long looked-for person appears, he himself looks unnatural
at first, and strange. How well many women know this curious fact in
love's optics! I doubt if men ever watch long enough, and longingly
enough, for a woman's coming, to be so familiar with the phenomenon.
Stephen White, however, had more than once during these four weeks
quickened his pace to overtake some slender figure clad in black, never
doubting that it was Mercy Philbrick, until he came so near that his eyes
were forced to tell him the truth. It was truly a strange thing that he
and Mercy did not once meet during all these weeks. It was no doubt an
important element in the growth of their relation, this interval of
unacknowledged and combated curiosity about each other. Nature has a
myriad of ways of bringing about her results. Seed-time and harvest are
constant, and the seasons all keep their routine; but no two fields have
the same method or measure in the summer's or the winter's dealings.
Hearts lie fallow sometimes; and seeds of love swell very big in the
ground, all undisturbed and unsuspected.

When Mercy and her mother drove up to the house, Stephen was standing at
his mother's window. It was just at dusk.

"Here they are, mother," he said. "I think I will go out and meet them."

Mrs. White lifted her eyes very slowl