ve
him money without his knowing it."

If any one had said to Mercy at this time: "It was not honorable in this
man, knowing or feeling that he could not marry you, to tell you of his
love, and to allow you to show him yours for him. He is putting you in a
false position, and may be blighting your whole life," Mercy would have
repelled the accusation most indignantly. She would have said: "He has
never asked me for any such love as that. He told me most honestly in the
very beginning just how it was. He always said he would never fetter me by
a word; and, once when I forgot myself for a moment, and threw myself into
his very arms, he only kissed my forehead as if I were his sister, and put
me away from him almost with a reproof. No, indeed! he is the very soul of
honor. It is I who choose to love him with all my soul and all my
strength. Why should not a woman devote her life to a man without being
his wife, if she chooses, and if he so needs her? It is just as sacred and
just as holy a bond as the other, and holier, too; for it is more
unselfish. If he can give up the happiness of being a husband and father,
for the sake of his duty to his mother, cannot I give up the happiness of
being a wife and mother, for the sake of my affection and duty towards
him?"

It looked very plain to Mercy in these first days. It looked right, and it
seemed very full of joy. Her life seemed now rounded and complete. It had
a ruling motive, without which no life is satisfying; and that motive was
the highest motive known to the heart,--the desire to make another human
being perfectly happy. All hindrances and difficulties, all drawbacks and
sacrifices, seemed less than nothing to her. When she saw Stephen, she was
happy because she saw him; and when she did not see him, she was happy
because she had seen him, and would soon see him again. Past, present,
and future all melt into one great harmonious whole under the spell of
love in a nature like Mercy's. They are like so many rooms in one great
house; and in one or the other the loved being is always to be found,
always at home, can never depart! Could one be lonely for a moment in such
a house?

Mercy's perpetual and abiding joy at times terrified Stephen. It was a
thing so foreign to his own nature that it seemed to him hardly natural.
Calm acquiescence he could understand,--serene endurance: he himself never
chafed at the barriers, little or great, which kept him from Mercy. But
there