Christmas morning came, clear, cold, shining bright.  A slight thaw the day before had left every bough and twig and pine-needle covered with a moisture that had frozen in the night into glittering crystal sheaths, which flashed like millions of prisms in the sun.  The beauty of the scene was almost solemn.  The air was so frosty cold that even the noon sun did not melt these ice-sheaths; and, under the flood of the full mid-day light, the whole landscape seemed one blaze of jewels.  When Mercy and her mother entered Mrs. White’s room, half an hour before the dinner-hour, they found her sitting with the curtains drawn, because the light had hurt her eyes.

“Oh, Mrs. White!” exclaimed Mercy.  “It is cruel you should not see this glorious spectacle!  If you had the window open, the light would not hurt your eyes.  It is the glare of it coming through the glass.  Let us wrap you up, and draw you close to the window, and open it wide, so that you can see the colors for a few minutes.  It is just like fairy-land.”

Mrs. White looked bewildered.  Such a plan as this of getting out-door air she had never thought of.

“Won’t it make the room too cold?” she said.

“Oh, no, no!” cried Mercy; “and no matter if it does.  We can soon warm it up again.  Please let me ask Marty to come?” And, hardly waiting for permission, she ran to call Marty.  Wrapped up in blankets, Mrs. White was then drawn in her bed close to the open window, and lay there with a look of almost perplexed delight on her face.  When Stephen came in, Mercy stood behind her, a fleecy white cloud thrown over her head, pointing out eagerly every point of beauty in the view.  A high bush of sweet-brier, with long, slender, curving branches, grew just in front of the window.  Many of the cup-like seed-vessels still hung on the boughs:  they were all finely encrusted with frost.  As the wind faintly stirred the branches, every frost-globule flashed its full rainbow of color; the long sprays looked like wands strung with tiny fairy beakers, inlaid with pearls and diamonds.  Mercy sprang to the window, took one of these sprays in her fingers, and slowly waved it up and down in the sunlight.

“Oh, look at it against the blue sky!” she cried.  “Isn’t it enough to make one cry just to see it?”

“Oh, how can mother help loving her?” thought Stephen.  “She is the sweetest woman that ever drew breath.”

Mrs. White seemed indeed to have lost all her former distrust and antagonism.  She followed Mercy’s movements with eyes not much less eager and pleased than Stephen’s.  It was like a great burst of sunlight into a dark place, the coming of this earnest, joyous, outspoken nature into the old woman’s narrow and monotonous and comparatively uncheered life.  She had never seen a person of Mercy’s temperament.  The clear, decided, incisive manner commanded her respect, while the sunny gayety won her liking.  Stephen had gentle, placid sweetness and much love