When Lizzy Hunter first began to recognize the possibility of her Uncle Dorrance’s loving her dear friend Mercy, she found it very hard to refrain, in her talks with Mercy, from all allusions to such a possibility.  But she knew instinctively that any such suggestion would terrify Mercy, and make her withdraw herself altogether.  So she contented herself with talking to her in what she thought were safe generalizations on the subject of marriage.  Lizzy Hunter was one of the clinging, caressing, caressable women, who nestle into men’s affections as kittens nestle into warm corners, and from very much the same motives,—­love of warmth and shelter, and of being fondled.  To all these instincts in Lizzy, however, were added a really beautiful motherliness and great loyalty of affection.  If the world held more such women, there would be more happy children and contented husbands.

“Mercy,” said she one afternoon, earnestly, “Mercy, it makes me perfectly wretched to have you say so confidently that you will never be married.  You don’t know what you are talking about:  you don’t realize in the least what it is for a woman to live alone and homeless to the end of her days.”

“I never need be homeless, dear,” said Mercy.  “I shall always have a home, even after mother is no longer with me; and I am afraid that is very near, she has failed so much this past summer.  But, even if I were all alone, I should still keep my home.”

“A house isn’t a home, Mercy!” exclaimed Lizzy.  Of course you can always be comfortable, so far as a roof and food go towards comfort.”

“And that’s a great way, my Lizzy,” interrupted Mercy, laughing,—­“a great way.  No husband could possibly take the place of them, could he?”

“Now, Mercy, don’t talk so.  You know very well what I mean,” replied Lizzy.  “It is so forlorn for a woman not to have anybody need her, not to have anybody to love her more than he loves all the rest of the world, and not to have anybody to love herself.  Oh, Mercy, I don’t see how any woman lives without it!”

The tears came into Mercy’s eyes.  There were depths of lovingness in her soul of which a woman like Lizzy could not even dream.  But she spoke in a resolute tone, and she spoke very honestly, too, when she said,—­

“Well, I don’t see how any woman can help living very well without it, if it doesn’t come to her.  I don’t see how any human being—­man or woman, single or married—­can help being glad to be alive under any conditions.  It is such a glorious thing to have a soul and a body, and to get the most out of them.  Just from the purely selfish point of view, it seems to me a delight to live; and when you look at it from a higher point, and think how much each human being can do for those around him, why, then it is sublime.  Look at Parson Dorrance, Lizzy!  Just think of the sum of the happiness that man has created in this world!  He isn’t lonely.  He couldn’t think of such a thing.”