o, no!" cried Mercy; "and no matter if it does. We can soon warm it
up again. Please let me ask Marty to come?" And, hardly waiting for
permission, she ran to call Marty. Wrapped up in blankets, Mrs. White was
then drawn in her bed close to the open window, and lay there with a look
of almost perplexed delight on her face. When Stephen came in, Mercy stood
behind her, a fleecy white cloud thrown over her head, pointing out
eagerly every point of beauty in the view. A high bush of sweet-brier,
with long, slender, curving branches, grew just in front of the window.
Many of the cup-like seed-vessels still hung on the boughs: they were all
finely encrusted with frost. As the wind faintly stirred the branches,
every frost-globule flashed its full rainbow of color; the long sprays
looked like wands strung with tiny fairy beakers, inlaid with pearls and
diamonds. Mercy sprang to the window, took one of these sprays in her
fingers, and slowly waved it up and down in the sunlight.

"Oh, look at it against the blue sky!" she cried. "Isn't it enough to make
one cry just to see it?"

"Oh, how can mother help loving her?" thought Stephen. "She is the
sweetest woman that ever drew breath."

Mrs. White seemed indeed to have lost all her former distrust and
antagonism. She followed Mercy's movements with eyes not much less eager
and pleased than Stephen's. It was like a great burst of sunlight into a
dark place, the coming of this earnest, joyous, outspoken nature into the
old woman's narrow and monotonous and comparatively uncheered life. She
had never seen a person of Mercy's temperament. The clear, decided,
incisive manner commanded her respect, while the sunny gayety won her
liking. Stephen had gentle, placid sweetness and much love of the
beautiful; but his love of the beautiful was an indolent, and one might
almost say a-haughty, demand in his nature. Mercy's was a bounding and
delighted acceptance. She was cheery: he was only placid. She was full of
delight; he, only of satisfaction. In her, joy was of the spirit,
spiritual. Keen as were her senses, it was her soul which marshalled them
all. In him, though the soul's forces were not feeble, the senses foreran
them,--compelled them, sometimes conquered them. It would have been
impossible to put Mercy in any circumstances, in any situation, out of
which, or in spite of which, she would not find joy. But in Stephen
circumstance and place might as easily destroy as create happiness