The journey which Mercy had so much dreaded was unexpectedly pleasant.  Mrs. Carr proved an admirable traveller with the exception of her incessant and garrulous anxiety about the boxes which had been left behind on the deck of the schooner “Maria Jane,” and could not by any possibility overtake them for three weeks to come.  She was, in fact, so much of a child that she was in a state of eager delight at every new scene and person.  Her childishness proved the best of claims upon every one’s courtesy.  Everybody was ready to help “that poor sweet old woman;” and she was so simply and touchingly grateful for the smallest kindness that everybody who had helped her once wanted to help her again.  More than one of their fellow-travellers remembered for a long time the bright-faced young woman with her childish mother, and wondered where they could have been going, and what was to be their life.

On the fourth day, just as the sun was sinking behind the hills, they entered the beautiful river interval, through which the road to their new home lay.  Mercy sat with her face almost pressed against the panes of the car-windows, eagerly scanning every feature of the landscape, to her so new and wonderful.  To the dweller by the sea, the first sight of mountains is like the sight of a new heavens and a new earth.  It is a revelation of a new life.  Mercy felt strangely stirred and overawed.  She looked around in astonishment at her fellow-passengers, not one of whom apparently observed that on either hand were stretching away to the east and the west fields that were, even in this late autumn, like carpets of gold and green.  Through these fertile meadows ran a majestic river, curving and doubling as if loath to leave such fair shores.  The wooded mountains changed fast from green to purple, from purple to dark gray; and almost before Mercy had comprehended the beauty of the region, it was lost from her sight, veiled in the twilight’s pale, indistinguishable tints.  Her mother was fast asleep in her seat.  The train stopped every few moments at some insignificant station, of which Mercy could see nothing but a narrow platform, a dim lantern, and a sleepy-looking station-master.  Slowly, one or two at a time, the passengers disappeared, until she and her mother were left alone in the car.  The conductor and the brakeman, as they passed through, looked at them with renewed interest:  it was evident now that they were going through to the terminus of the road.

“Goin’ through, be ye?” said the conductor.  “It’ll be dark when we get in; an’ it’s beginnin’ to rain.  ‘S anybody comin’ to meet ye?”

“No,” said Mercy, uneasily.  “Will there not be carriages at the depot?  We are going to the hotel.  I believe there is but one.”

“Well, there may be a kerridge down to-night, an’ there may not:  there’s no knowin’.  Ef it don’t rain too hard, I reckon Seth’ll be down.”

Mercy’s sense of humor never failed her.  She laughed heartily, as she said,—­