“Grant me that, mother?” laughed Stephen, lightly.  “I never said she was pretty, did I?  The first time I saw her, I thought she was uncommonly plain; but afterwards I saw that I had done her injustice.  I don’t think, however, she would usually be thought pretty.”

Mrs. White was much gratified by his careless tone and manner; so much so that she went farther than she had intended, and said in an off-hand way, “I’m real sorry, Steve, you thought I didn’t treat her well yesterday.  I didn’t mean to be rude, but you know it always does vex me to see a woman’s head turned by a man’s taking a little notice of her; and I know very well, Stephy, that women like you.  It wouldn’t take much to make Mrs. Philbrick fancy you were in love with her.”

Stephen also was gratified by his mother’s apparent softening of mood, and instinctively met her more than half way, replying,—­

“I didn’t mean to say that you were rude to her, mother; only you showed so plainly that you didn’t want them to stay.  Perhaps she didn’t notice it, only thought you were tired.  It isn’t any great matter, any way.  We’d better keep on good terms with them, if they’re to live under the same roof with us, that’s all.”

“Oh, yes,” replied Mrs. White.  “Much better to be on neighborly terms.  The old mother is a childish old thing, though.  She’d bore me to death, if she came in often.”

“Yes, indeed, she is a bore, sure enough,” said Stephen; “but she’s so simple, and so much like a child you can’t help pitying her.”

They fenced very well, these two, with their respective secrets to keep; but the man fenced best, his secret being the most momentous to shield from discovery.  When he shut the door, having bade his mother good by, he fairly breathed hard with the sense of having come out of a conflict.  One of the resolutions he had taken was that he would wait for Mercy this morning on a street he knew she must pass on her way to market.  He did not define to himself any motive for this act, except the simple longing to see her face.  He had not said to himself what he would do, or what words he would speak, or even that he would speak at all; but one look at her face he must have, and he had though to himself distinctly in making this plan, “Here is one way in which I can see her every day, and my mother never know any thing about it.”

When Mrs. White saw Mercy set off for her usual morning walk, a half hour or more after Stephen had left the house, she thought, as she had often though before on similar occasions, “Well, she won’t overtake Stephen this time.  I dare say she planned to.”  Light-hearted Mercy, meantime, was walking on with her own swift, elastic tread, and thinking warmly and shyly of the look with which Stephen had bade her good-by the day before.  She was walking, as was her habit, with her eyes cast down, and did not observe that any one approached her, until she suddenly heard Stephen’s voice saying, “Good-morning, Mrs. Philbrick.”  It was the second time that he had surprised her in a reverie of which he himself was the subject.  This time the surprise was a joyful one; and the quick flush of rosy color which spread over her cheeks was a flush of gladness,—­undisguised and honest gladness.