“That’s the gal thet comed last night with her mother.  Darned sight better-lookin’ by daylight than she wuz then!” said the stable-boy.

“Hm! boys an’ men, ye ’re all alike,—­all for looks,” said the cook, who was a lean and ill-favored spinster, at least fifty years old.  “The gal isn’t any thin’ so amazin’ for good looks, ’s I can see; but she’s got mighty sarchin’ eyes in her head.  I wonder if she’s a lookin’ for somebody they’re expectin’.”

“Steve White he was with ’em down to the depot,” replied the stable-boy.  “Seth sed he handed on ’em into the kerridge, ’s if they were regular topknots, sure enough.”

“Hm!  Seth Quin ’s a fool, ‘n’ always wuz,” replied the cook, with a seemingly uncalled-for acerbity of tone.  “I’ve allus observed that them that hez the most to say about topknots hez the least idea of what topknots really is.  There ain’t a touch o’ topknot about that ere girl:  she’s come o’ real humbly people.  Anybody with half an eye can see that.  Good gracious!  I believe she’s goin’ to stand still, and let old man Wheeler run over her.  Look out there, look out, gal!” screamed the cook, and pounded vigorously with her rolling-pin on the side of the door to rouse Mercy’s attention.  Mercy turned just in time to confront a stout, red-faced, old gentleman with a big cane, who was literally on the point of walking over her.  He was so near that, as she turned, he started back as if she had hit him in the breast.

“God bless my soul, God bless my soul, miss!” he exclaimed, in his excitement, striking his cane rapidly against the ground.  “I beg your pardon, beg pardon, miss.  Bad habit of mine, very bad habit,—­walk along without looking.  Walked on a dog the other day; hurt dog; tumbled down myself, nearly broke my leg.  Bad habit, miss,—­bad habit; too old to change, too old to change.  Beg pardon, miss.”

The old gentleman mumbled these curt phrases in a series 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.