ephen were boys at
school together, he had passed one of the short vacations at Stephen's
house. He remembered very little of Stephen's father and mother, or of
their way of life. He was at the age when house and home mean little to
boys, except a spot where shelter and food are obtained in the enforced
intervals between their hours of out-door life. But he had never forgotten
the grand out-look and off-look from the town. Lying itself high up on the
western slope of what must once have been a great river terrace, it
commanded a view of a wide and fertile meadow country, near enough to be a
most beautiful feature in the landscape, but far enough away to prevent
any danger from its moisture. To the south and south-west rose a fine
range of mountains, bold and sharp-cut, though they were not very high,
and were heavily wooded to their summits. The westernmost peak of this
range was separated from the rest by a wide river, which had cut its way
through in some of those forgotten ages when, if we are to believe the
geologists, every thing was topsy-turvy on this now meek and
well-regulated planet.

The town, although, as I said, it lay on the western slope of a great
river terrace, held in its site three distinctly marked plateaus. From the
two highest of these, the views were grand. It was like living on a
mountain, and yet there was the rich beauty of coloring of the river
interval. Nowhere in all New England was there a fairer country than this
to look upon, nor a goodlier one in which to live.

Mr. Allen's enthusiasm in describing the beauties of the place, and
Mercy's enthusiasm in listening, were fast driving out of their minds the
thought of the sale, which had been mentioned in the beginning of their
conversation. Mercy was the first to recall it. She blushed and hesitated,
as she said,--

"But, Mr. Allen, we can't go, you know, until I have sold this house. Did
you really want to buy it? And how much do you think I ought to ask for
it?"

"To be sure, to be sure!" exclaimed the young minister. "Dear me, what
children we are! Mercy, I don't honestly know what you ought to ask for
the house. I'll find out."

"Deacon Jones said he thought, taking in the cranberry meadow, it was
worth three thousand dollars," said Mercy; "but that seems a great deal to
me: though not in a good cranberry year, perhaps," added she, ingenuously,
"for last year the cranberries brought us in seventy-five dollars, besides
paying for the