ge apparitions before her, and let her knitting fall on the
floor. The ball rolled swiftly towards Mr. Wheeler, and tangled the yarn
around his feet. He jumped up and down, all the while brandishing his
cane, and muttering, "Pshaw! pshaw! Damn knitting! Always did hate the
sight on't." But, kicking out to the right and the left vigorously, he
soon snapped the yarn, and stood free.

"Mother! mother!" called Mercy from behind, "this is the gentleman I told
you of,--Mr. Wheeler. He has very kindly given us this beautiful clock,
almost exactly like ours."

The sound of Mercy's voice reassured the poor bewildered old woman, and,
dropping her old-fashioned courtesy, she said timidly,--

"Pleased to see you, sir. Pray take a chair."

"Chair? chair? No, no! Never do sit down in houses,--never, never.
Where'll you have it, mum? Where'll you have it?

"Don't you dare put that down! Wait till you are told to, you lazy
rascals!" he exclaimed, lifting his cane, and threatening the men who were
on the point of setting the clock down, very naturally thinking they might
be permitted at last to rest a moment.

"Oh, Mr. Wheeler!" said Mercy, "let them put it down anywhere, please, for
the present. I never can tell at first where I want a thing to stand. I
shall have to try it in different corners before I am sure," and Mercy
took out her portemonnaie, and came forward to pay the bearers. As she
opened it, the old man stepped nearer to her, and peered curiously into
her hand. The money in the portemonnaie was neatly folded and assorted,
each kind by itself, in a separate compartment. The old man nodded, and
muttered to himself, "Fine young woman! fine young woman! Business,
business!--Who taught you, child, to sort your money that way?" he
suddenly asked.

"Why, no one taught me," replied Mercy. "I found that it saved time not to
have to fumble all through a portemonnaie for a ten-cent piece. It looks
neater, too, than to have it all in a crumpled mass," she added, smiling
and looking up in the old man's face. "I don't like disorder. Such a place
as your store-room would drive me crazy."

The old man was not listening. He was looking about the room with a
dissatisfied expression of countenance. In a few moments, he said
abruptly,--

"'S this all the furniture you've got?"

Mrs. Carr colored, and looked appealingly at Mercy; but Mercy laughed,
and replied as she would have answered her own grandfather,--

"Oh, no, not all we h