se sermons?"

Mercy was impatient. Already the self-centring of Stephen's mind, his
instant reverting from most trains of thought to their possible bearing on
her love for him, had begun to irritate her. It was so foreign to her own
unconscious, free-souled acceptance and trust.

"Stephen," she exclaimed, "I wish you wouldn't say such things. Besides
seeming to imply a sort of distrust of my love for you, they are
illogical; and you know there is nothing I hate like bad logic."

Stephen made no reply. The slightest approach to a disagreement between
Mercy and himself gave him great pain and a sense of terror; and he took
refuge instantly behind his usual shield of silence. This also was foreign
to Mercy's habit and impulse. When any thing went wrong, it was Mercy's
way to speak out honestly; to have the matter set in all its lights, until
it could reach its true one. She hated mystery; she hated reticence; she
hated every thing which fell short of full and frank understanding of each
other.

"Oh, Stephen!" she used to say often, "it is bad enough for us to be
forced into keeping things back from the world. Don't let us keep any
thing back from each other."

Poor Mercy! the days were beginning to be hard for her. Her face often
wore a look of perplexed thought which was very new to it. Still she never
wavered for a moment in her devotion to Stephen. If she had stood
acknowledged before all the world as his wife, she could not have been any
more single-hearted and unquestioning in her loyalty.

It was at a picnic in which the young people of both Danby and Penfield
had joined that Mercy met Parson Dorrance. No such gathering was ever
thought complete without the Parson's presence. Again and again one might
hear it said in the preliminary discussion: "But we must find out first
what day Parson Dorrance can go. It won't be any fun without him!"

Until Mercy came, Stephen White had rarely been asked to the pleasurings
of the young people in Penfield. There was a general impression that he
did not care for things of that sort. His manner was wrongly interpreted,
however: it was really only the constraint born of the feeling that he was
out of his place, or that nobody wanted him. He watched in silent wonder
the cordial way in which, it seemed to him, that Mercy talked with
everybody, and made everybody feel happy.

"Oh, Mercy, how can you!" he would exclaim: "I feel so dumb, even while I
am talking the fastest!"

"W