gs go. Nothing can happen in this house without my
knowing it."

The mischief was done; but Mrs. White was very much mistaken in the last
clause of her soliloquy.

Meantime, Mercy was slowly walking towards the village, revolving her own
little perplexities, and with a mind much freer from the thought of
Stephen White than it had been for four weeks. Mercy was in a dilemma.
Their clock was broken, hopelessly broken. It had been packed in too frail
a box; and heavier boxes placed above it had crashed through, making a
complete wreck of the whole thing,--frame, works, all. It was a high,
old-fashioned Dutch clock, and had stood in the corner of their
sitting-room ever since Mercy could recollect. It had belonged to her
father's father, and had been her mother's wedding gift from him.

"It's easy enough to get a clock that will keep good time," thought Mercy,
as she walked along; "but, oh, how I shall miss the dear old thing! It
looked like a sort of belfry in the corner. I wonder if there are any such
clocks to be bought anywhere nowadays?" She stopped presently before a
jeweller's and watchmaker's shop in the Brick Row, and eagerly scrutinized
the long line of clocks standing in the window. Very ugly they all
were,--cheap, painted wood, of a shining red, and tawdry pictures on the
doors, which ran up to a sharp point in a travesty of the Gothic arch
outline.

"Oh, dear!" sighed Mercy, involuntarily aloud.

"Bless my soul! Bless my soul!" fell suddenly upon her ear, in sharp,
jerking syllables, accompanied by clicking taps of a cane on the sidewalk.
She turned and looked into the face of her friend, "Old Man Wheeler," who
was standing so near her that with each of his rapid shiftings from foot
to foot he threatened to tread on the hem of her gown.

"Bless my soul! Bless my soul! Glad to see ye. Missed your face. How're
ye gettin' on? Gone into your house? How's your mother? I'll come see you,
if you're settled. Don't go to see anybody,--never go! never go! People
are all wolves, wolves, wolves; but I'll come an' see you. Like your
face,--good face, good face. What're you lookin' at? What're you lookin'
at? Ain't goin' to buy any thin' out o' that winder, be ye? Trash, trash,
trash! People are all cheats, cheats," said the old man, breathlessly.

"I'm afraid I'll have to, sir," replied Mercy, vainly trying to keep the
muscles of her face quiet. "I must buy a clock. Our clock got broken on
the way."

"Broken? Clock