d
looking into Stephen's face with all the fulness of affection of her
glowing nature. "I shall never be sorry."

"Bless you for saying that, dear!" said Stephen, solemnly,--"bless you.
You should never be sorry a moment in your life, if I could help it; and
now, dear, I must leave you," he said, looking uneasily about. "I ought
not to have brought you into this lane. If people were to see us walking
here, they would think it strange." And, as they reached the entrance of
the lane, his manner suddenly became most ceremonious; and, extending his
hand to assist her over a drift of snow, he said in tones unnecessarily
loud and formal, "Good-morning, Mrs. Philbrick. I am glad to have helped
you through these drifts. Good-morning," and was gone.

Mercy stood still, and looked after him for a moment with a blank sense of
bewilderment. His sudden change of tone and manner smote her like a blow.
She comprehended in a flash the subterfuge in it, and her soul recoiled
from it with incredulous pain. "Why should he be afraid to have people see
us together? What does it mean? What reason can he possibly have?" Scores
of questions like these crowded on her mind, and hurt her sorely. Her
conjecture even ran so wide as to suggest the possibility of his being
engaged to another woman,--some old and mistaken promise by which he was
hampered. Her direct and honest nature could conceive of nothing less than
this which could explain his conduct. Restlessly her imagination fastened
on this solution of the problem, and tortured her in vain efforts to
decide what would be right under such circumstances.

The day was a long, hard one for Mercy. The more she thought, conjectured,
remembered, and anticipated, the deeper grew her perplexity. All the joy
which she had at first felt in the consciousness that Stephen loved her
died away in the strain of these conflicting uncertainties: and it was a
grave and almost stern look with which she met him that night, when, with
an eager bearing, almost radiant, he entered her door.

He felt the change at once, and, stretching both his hands towards her,
exclaimed,--

"Mercy, my dear, new, sweet friend! are you not well to-night?"

"Oh, yes, thank you. I am very well," replied Mercy, in a tone very
gentle, but with a shade of reserve in it.

Stephen's face fell. The expression of patient endurance which was
habitual to it, and which Mercy knew so well, and found always so
irresistibly appealing, settl