ies of inarticulate
jerks, as if his vocal apparatus were wound up and worked with a crank,
but had grown so rusty that every now and then a wheel would catch on a
cog. He did not stand still for a moment, but kept continually stepping,
stepping, without advancing or retreating, striking his heavy cane on the
ground at each step, as if beating time to his jerky syllables. He had
twinkling blue eyes, which were half hid under heavy, projecting eyebrows,
and shut up tight whenever he laughed. His hair was long and thin, and
white as spun glass. Altogether, except that he spoke with an unmistakable
Yankee twang, and wore unmistakable Yankee clothes, you might have fancied
that he was an ancient elf from the Hartz Mountains.

Mercy could not refrain from laughing in his face, as she retreated a few
steps towards the piazza, and said,--

"It is I who ought to beg your pardon. I had no business to be standing
stock-still in the middle of the highway like a post."

"Sensible young woman! sensible young woman! God bless my soul! don't know
your face, don't know your face," said the old gentleman, peering out
from under the eaves of his eyebrows, and scrutinizing Mercy as a child
might scrutinize a new-comer into his father's house. One could not resent
it, any more than one could resent the gaze of a child. Mercy laughed
again.

"No, sir, you don't know my face. I only came last night," she said.

"God bless my soul! God bless my soul! Fine young woman! fine young woman!
glad to see you,--glad, glad. Girls good for nothing, nothing, nothing at
all, nowadays," jerked on the queer old gentleman, still shifting rapidly
from one foot to the other, and beating time continuously with his cane,
but looking into Mercy's face with so kindly a smile that she felt her
heart warm with affection towards him.

"Your father come with you? Come to stay? I'd like to know ye, child. Like
your face,--good face, good face, very good face," continued the
inexplicable old man. "Don't like many people. People are wolves, wolves,
wolves. 'D like to know you, child. Good face, good face."

"Can he be crazy?" thought Mercy. But the smile and the honest twinkle of
the clear blue eye were enough to counterbalance the incoherent talk: the
old man was not crazy, only eccentric to a rare degree. Mercy felt
instinctively that she had found a friend, and one whom she could trust
and lean on.

"Thank you, sir," she said. "I'm very glad you like my face.