ying home, and she acquiesced unhesitatingly.

Mrs. White did not urge them to remain. To all Mrs. White's faults it must
be confessed that she added the virtue of absolute sincerity.

"Good-afternoon, Mrs. Carr," and "Good-afternoon, Mrs. Philbrick," fell
from her lips in the same measured syllables and the same cold, unhuman
voice which had so startled Mercy once before.

"What a perfectly horrid old woman!" exclaimed Mercy, as soon as they had
crossed the threshold of their own door. "I'll never go near her again as
long as I live!"

"Why, Mercy Carr!" exclaimed her mother, "what do you mean? I don't think
so. She got very tired before dinner was over. I could see that, poor
thing! She's drefful weak, an' it stan's to reason she'd be kind o'
snappish sometimes."

Mercy opened her lips to reply, but changed her mind and said nothing.

"It's just as well for mother to keep on good terms with her, if she can,"
she thought. "Maybe it'll help divert a little of Mrs. White's temper from
him, poor fellow!"

Stephen had followed them to the door, saying little; but at the last
moment, when Mercy said "good-by," he had suddenly held out his hand, and,
clasping hers tightly, had looked at her sadly, with a world of regret and
appeal and affection and almost despair in the look.

"What a life he must lead of it!" thought Mercy. "Dear me! I should go
wild or else get very wicked. I believe I'd get very wicked. I wonder he
shuts himself up so with her. It is all nonsense: it only makes her more
and more selfish. How mean, how base of her, to be so jealous of his
talking with me! If she were his wife, it would be another thing. But he
doesn't belong to her body and soul, if she _is_ his mother. If ever I
know him well enough, I'll tell him so. It isn't manly in him to let her
tyrannize over him and everybody else that comes into the house. I never
saw any human being that made one so afraid, somehow. Her tone and look
are enough to freeze your blood."

While Mercy was buried in these indignant thoughts, Stephen and his
mother, only a few feet away, separated from her only by a wall, were
having a fierce and angry talk. No sooner had the door closed upon Mercy
than Mrs. White had said to Stephen,--

"Have you the slightest idea how much excitement you showed in conversing
with Mrs. Philbrick? I have never seen you look or speak in this way."

The flush had not yet died away on Stephen's face. At this attack, it grew
dee