“Yours most honestly,

“Mercy.”

Until he read this letter, Stephen had not known that secretly in the bottom of his heart he riad all these years cherished a hope that there might yet be a future in store for him and Mercy.  Now, by the new sense of desolation which he felt, he knew that there must have been a little more life than he thought left; in him to die.

As soon as his mother was buried, he closed the house and went abroad.  There he roamed about listlessly from country to country, for many years, acquiring a certain desultory culture, and buying, so far as his income would permit, every thing he saw which he thought Mercy would like.  Then he went home, bought the old Jacobs house back again, and fitted it up in every respect as Mercy had once suggested.  This done, he sat down to wait—­for he knew not what.  He had a vague feeling that he would die soon, and leave the house and his small fortune to Mercy; and she would come and spend her summers there, and so he would recall to her their old life together.  He led the life of a hermit,—­rarely went out, and still more rarely saw any one at home.  He looked like a man of sixty rather than like one of fifty.  He was fast becoming an invalid, more, however, from the lack of purpose and joy than from any disease.  Life had been very hard to Stephen.

Nothing seemed more probable, contrasting his listless figure, gray hair, and jaded face with Mercy’s full, fresh countenance and bounding elasticity, than that his dream of going first, and leaving to her the gift of all he had, would be realized; but he was destined to outlive her by many a long year.

Mercy’s death was a strange one.  She had gone with two of Lizzy Hunter’s daughters to spend a few weeks in one of the small White Mountain villages, which was a favorite haunt of hers.  The day after their arrival, a two days’ excursion to some of the mountains was proposed; and Mercy, though not feeling well enough to join it herself, insisted that the girls should go.  They were reluctant to leave her; but, with her usual vehemence, she resisted all their protestations, and compelled them to join the party.  She was thus left alone in a house crowded with people, all of whom were strangers to her.  Some of them recollected afterward to have noticed her sitting on the piazza at sunset, looking at the mountains with an expression of great delight; but no one spoke with her, and no one missed her the next morning, when she did not come to breakfast.  Late in the forenoon, the landlady came running in great terror and excitement to one of the guests, exclaiming:  “That lady that came yesterday is dying.  The chambermaids could not get into her room, nor get any answer, so we broke open the door.  The doctor says she’ll never come to again!”

Helpless, the village doctor, and the servants, and the landlady, and as many of the guests as could crowd into the little room, stood around Mercy’s bed.  It seemed a sad way to die, surrounded by strangers, who did not even know her name; but Mercy was unconscious.  It made no difference to her.  Her heavy breathing told only too well the nature of the trouble.