liked to be out of doors all day long: it seemed to her a fairer than
summer-time. She followed the partially broken trails of the wood-cutters
far into the depths of the forests, and found there on sunny days, in
sheltered spots, where the feet of the men and horses and the runners of
the heavy sledges had worn away the snow, green mosses and glossy ferns
and shining clumps of the hepatica. It was a startling sight on a December
day, when the snow was lying many inches deep, to come suddenly on Mercy
walking in the middle of the road, her hands filled with green ferns and
mosses and vines. There were three different species of ground-pine in
these woods, and hepatica and pyrola and wintergreen, and thickets of
laurel. What wealth for a lover of wild, out-door things! Each day Mercy
bore home new treasures, until the house was almost as green and fragrant
as a summer wood. Day after day, Mrs. White, from her point of observation
at her window, watched the lithe young figure coming down the road,
bearing her sheaves of boughs and vines, sometimes on her shoulder, as
lightly and gracefully as a peasant girl of Italy might bear her poised
basket of grapes. Gradually a deep wonder took possession of the lonely
old woman's soul.

"Whatever can she do with all that green stuff?" she thought. "She's
carried in enough to trim the 'Piscopal church twice over."

At last she shared her perplexity with Marty.

"Marty," said she one day, "have you ever seen Mrs. Philbrick come into
the house without somethin' green in her hands? What do you suppose she's
goin' to do with it all?"

"Lord knows," answered Marty. "I've been a speckkerlatin' about that very
thing myself. They can't be a brewin' beer this time o' year; but I see
her yesterday with her hands full o' pyroly."

"I wish you would make an errand in there, Marty," said Mrs. White, "and
see if you can any way find out what it's all for. She's carried in pretty
near a grove of pine-trees, I should say."

The willing Marty went, and returned with a most surprising tale. Every
room was wreathed with green vines. There were evergreen trees in boxes;
the window-seats were filled with pots of green things growing; waving
masses of ferns hung down from brackets on the walls.

"I jest stood like a dumb critter the minnit I got in," said Marty. "I
didn't know whether I wuz in the house or out in the woods, the whole
place smelled o' hemlock so, an' looked so kind o' sunny and shad