in a great strait for
money, so I was very glad to give it to him. Such a mother is a terrible
burden on a young man," and Mercy continued talking about Mrs. White,
until she had effectually led the conversation away from Stephen.

When Lizzy Hunter first began to recognize the possibility of her Uncle
Dorrance's loving her dear friend Mercy, she found it very hard to
refrain, in her talks with Mercy, from all allusions to such a
possibility. But she knew instinctively that any such suggestion would
terrify Mercy, and make her withdraw herself altogether. So she contented
herself with talking to her in what she thought were safe generalizations
on the subject of marriage. Lizzy Hunter was one of the clinging,
caressing, caressable women, who nestle into men's affections as kittens
nestle into warm corners, and from very much the same motives,--love of
warmth and shelter, and of being fondled. To all these instincts in Lizzy,
however, were added a really beautiful motherliness and great loyalty of
affection. If the world held more such women, there would be more happy
children and contented husbands.

"Mercy," said she one afternoon, earnestly, "Mercy, it makes me perfectly
wretched to have you say so confidently that you will never be married.
You don't know what you are talking about: you don't realize in the least
what it is for a woman to live alone and homeless to the end of her days."

"I never need be homeless, dear," said Mercy. "I shall always have a home,
even after mother is no longer with me; and I am afraid that is very near,
she has failed so much this past summer. But, even if I were all alone, I
should still keep my home."

"A house isn't a home, Mercy!" exclaimed Lizzy. Of course you can always
be comfortable, so far as a roof and food go towards comfort."

"And that's a great way, my Lizzy," interrupted Mercy, laughing,--"a great
way. No husband could possibly take the place of them, could he?"

"Now, Mercy, don't talk so. You know very well what I mean," replied
Lizzy. "It is so forlorn for a woman not to have anybody need her, not to
have anybody to love her more than he loves all the rest of the world, and
not to have anybody to love herself. Oh, Mercy, I don't see how any woman
lives without it!"

The tears came into Mercy's eyes. There were depths of lovingness in her
soul of which a woman like Lizzy could not even dream. But she spoke in a
resolute tone, and she spoke very honestly, too, whe