I like yours,
too,--you look so merry. I think I and my mother will be very glad to know
you. We have come to live here in half of Mr. Stephen White's house."

"Merry, merry? Nobody calls me merry. That's a mistake, child,--mistake,
mistake. Mistake about the house, too,--mistake. Stephen White hasn't any
house,--no, no, hasn't any house. My name's Wheeler, Wheeler. Good enough
name. 'Old Man Wheeler' some think's better. I hear 'em: my cane don't
make so much noise but I hear 'em. Ha! ha! wolves, wolves, wolves! People
are all wolves, all alike, all alike. Got any money, child?" With this
last question, the whole expression of his face changed; the very features
seemed to shrink; his eyes grew dark and gleaming as they fastened on
Mercy's face.

Even this did not rouse Mercy's distrust. There was something inexplicable
in the affectionate confidence she felt in this strange, old man.

"Only a little, sir," she said. "We are not rich; we have only a little."

"A little's a good deal, good deal, good deal. Take care of it, child.
People'll git it away from you. They're nothing but wolves, wolves,
wolves;" and, saying these words, the old man set off at a rapid pace down
the street, without bidding Mercy good-morning.

As she stood watching him with an expression of ever-increasing
astonishment, he turned suddenly, planted his stick in the ground, and
called,--

"God bless my soul! God bless my soul! Bad habit, bad habit. Never do say
good-morning,--bad habit. Too old to change, too old to change. Bad habit,
bad habit." And with a nod to Mercy, but still not saying good-morning,
he walked away.

Mercy ran into the house, breathless with amusement and wonder, and gave
her mother a most graphic account of this strange interview.

"But, for all his queerness, I like him, and I believe he'll be a great
friend of ours," she said, as she finished her story.

Mrs. Carr was knitting a woollen stocking. She had been knitting woollen
stockings ever since Mercy could remember. She always kept several on hand
in different stages of incompletion: some that she could knit on in the
dark, without any counting of stitches; others that were in the process of
heeling or toeing, and required the closest attention. She had been
setting a heel while Mercy was speaking, and did not reply for a moment.
Then, pushing the stitches all into a compact bunch in the middle of one
needle, she let her work fall into her lap, and, rolling the