Ha!  If upon those doors to-night
  I knocked, how well I know the stare,
  The questioning, the mingled air
  Of scorn and pity at the sight,
  The wonder if it would be right
  To give me alms of meat and bread! 
  And if I, reckless, standing there,
  For once the truth imploring said,
  That not for bread or meat I longed,
  That such an alms my real need wronged,

  That I would fain come in, and sit
  Beside their fire, and hear the voice
  Of children; yea, and if my choice
  Were free, and I dared mention it,
  And some sweet child should think me fit
  To hold a child upon my knee
  One moment, would my soul rejoice,
  More than to banquet royally,
  And I the pulses of its wrist
  Would kiss, as men the cross have kissed.

  Ha!  Well the haughty stare I know
  With which they’d say, “The man is mad!”
  “What an impostor’s face he had!”
  “How insolent these beggars grow!”
  Go to, ye happy people!  Go! 
  My yearning is as fierce as hate. 
  Must my heart break, that yours be glad? 
  Will your turn come at last, though late? 
  I will not knock, I will pass by;
  My comrades wait,—­the wind, the rain. 
  Comrades, we’ll run a race to-night! 
  The stakes may not seem much to gain: 
  The goal is not marked plain in sight;
  But, comrades, understand,—­if I
  Drop dead, ’t will be a victory!

These poems and many others Stephen carried with him wherever he went.  To read them over was next to seeing Mercy.  The poet was hardly less dear to him than the woman.  He felt at times so removed from her by the great gulf which her genius all unconsciously seemed to create between herself and him that he doubted his own memories of her love, and needed to be reassured by gazing into her eyes, touching her hand, and listening to her voice.  It seemed to him that, if this separation lasted much longer, he should lose all faith in the fact of their relation.  Very impatient thoughts of poor old Mrs. Carr filled Stephen’s thoughts in these days.  Heretofore she had been no barrier to his happiness; her still and childlike presence was no restraint upon him; he had come to disregard it as he would the presence of an infant in a cradle.  Therefore, he had, or thought he had, the kindest of feelings towards her; but now that her helpless paralyzed hands had the power to shut him away from Mercy, he hated her, as he had always hated every thing which stood between him and delight.  Yet, had it been his duty to minister to her, he would have done it as gently, as faithfully, as Mercy herself.  He would have spoken to her in the mildest and tenderest of tones, while in his heart he wished her dead.  So far can a fine fastidiousness, allied to a sentiment of compassion, go towards making a man a consummate hypocrite.

Parson Dorrance came often to see Mercy, but always with Lizzy Hunter.  By the subtle instinct of love, he knew that to see him thus, and see him often, would soonest win back for him his old place in Mercy’s life.  The one great desire he had left now was to regain that,—­to see her again look up in his face with the frank, free, loving look which she always had had until that sad morning.