. His
enjoyment was as far inferior to Mercy's in genuineness and enduringness
as is the shallow lake to the quenchless spring. The waters of each may
leap and sparkle alike, to the eye, in the sunshine; but when drought has
fallen on the lake, and the place that knew it knows it no more, the
spring is full, free, and glad as ever.

Mrs. White's pleasure in Mercy's presence was short-lived. Long before
the simple dinner was over, she had relapsed into her old forbidding
manner, and into a silence which was more chilly than any words could have
been. The reason was manifest. She read in every glance of Stephen's eyes,
in every tone of his voice, the depth and the warmth of his feeling
towards Mercy. The jealous distrust which she had felt at first, and which
had slept for a brief time under the spell of Mercy's kindliness towards
herself, sprang into fiercer life than ever. Stephen and Mercy, in utter
unconsciousness of the change which was gradually taking place, talked and
laughed together in an evident gay delight, which made matters worse every
moment. A short and surly reply from Mrs. White to an innocent question of
Mrs. Carr's fell suddenly on Mercy's ear. Keenly alive to the smallest
slight to her mother, she turned quickly towards Mrs. White, and, to her
consternation, met the same steady, pitiless, aggressive look which she
had seen on her face in their first interview. Mercy's first emotion was
one of great indignation: her second was a quick flash of comprehension of
the whole thing. A great wave of rosy color swept over her face; and,
without knowing what she was doing, she looked appealingly at Stephen.
Already there was between them so subtle a bond that each understood the
other without words. Stephen knew all that Mercy thought in that instant,
and an answering flush mounted to his forehead. Mrs. White saw both these
flushes, and compressed her lips still more closely in a grimmer silence
than before. Poor, unsuspecting Mrs. Carr kept on and on with her
meaningless and childish remarks and inquiries; and Mercy and Stephen were
both very grateful for them. The dinner came to an untimely end; and
almost immediately Mercy, with a nervous and embarrassed air, totally
foreign to her, said to her mother,--

"We must go home now. I have letters to write."

Mrs. Carr was disappointed. She had anticipated a long afternoon of chatty
gossip with her neighbor; but she saw that Mercy had some strong reason
for hurr