Mercy Philbrick hated a compliment.  This was partly the result of the secluded life she had led; partly an instinctive antagonism in her straightforward nature to any thing which could be even suspected of not being true.  The few direct compliments she had received had been from men whom she neither respected nor trusted.  These words, coming from Stephen White, just at this moment, were most offensive to her.

Her face flushed still deeper red, and saying curtly,—­“You frightened me very much, Mr. White; but it is not of the least consequence,” she turned to walk back to the village.  Stephen unconsciously stretched out his hand to detain her.

“But, Mrs. Philbrick,” he said eagerly, “pray tell me what you think of the house.  Do you think you can be contented in it?”

“I have not seen it,” replied Mercy, in the same curt tone, still moving on.

“Not seen it!” exclaimed Stephen, in a tone which was of such intense astonishment that it effectually roused Mercy’s attention.  “Not seen it!  Why, did you not know you were on your own stone wall?  There is the house;” and Mercy, following the gesture of his hand, saw, not more than twenty rods beyond the spot where she had been sitting, a shabby, faded, yellow wooden house, standing in a yard which looked almost as neglected as the orchard, from which it was only in part separated by a tumbling stone wall.

Mercy did not speak.  Stephen watched her face in silence for a moment; then he laughed constrainedly, and said,—­

“Don’t be afraid, Mrs. Philbrick, to say outright that it is the dismallest old barn you ever saw.  That’s just what I had said about it hundreds of times, and wondered how anybody could possibly live in it.  But necessity drove us into it, and I suppose necessity has brought you to it, too,” added Stephen, sadly.

Mercy did not speak.  Very deliberately her eyes scanned the building.  An expression of scorn slowly gathered on her face.

“It is not so forlorn inside as it is out,” said Stephen.  “Some of the rooms are quite pleasant.  The south rooms in your part of the house are very cheerful.”

Mercy did not speak.  Stephen went on, beginning to be half-angry with this little, unknown woman from Cape Cod, who looked with the contemptuous glance of a princess upon the house in which he and his mother dwelt,—­

“You are quite at liberty to throw up your lease, Mrs. Philbrick, if you choose.  It was, perhaps, hardly fair to have let you hire the house without seeing it.”

Mercy started.  “I beg your pardon, Mr. White.  I should not think of such a thing as giving up the lease.  I am very sorry you saw how ugly I think the house.  I do think it is the very ugliest house I ever saw,” she continued, speaking with emphatic deliberation; “but, then, I have not seen many houses.  In our village at home, all the houses are low and broad and comfortable-looking.  They look as if they had sat down and leaned back to take their ease; and they are all neat and clean-looking, and have rows of flower-beds from the gate to the front door.  I never saw a house built with such a steep angle to its roof as this has,” said Mercy, looking up with the instinctive dislike of a natural artist’s eye at the ridgepole of the old house.