3.  Before Mrs. Timorous was well out of the door, Mercy had already plucked off her gloves, and hung up her morning bonnet on a nail in the wall, so much did her heart heave to help the cumbered widow and her fatherless children.  “If thou wilt, I will hire thee,” said Christiana, “and thou shalt go with me as my servant.  Yet we will have all things common betwixt thee and me; only, now thou art here, go along with me.”  At this Mercy fell on Christiana’s neck and kissed her mother; for after that morning Christiana had always a daughter of her own, and Mercy a mother.  And you may be sure, with two such women working with all their might, all things were soon ready for their happy departure.

Mr. Kerr Bain invites his readers to compare John Bunyan’s Mercy at this point with William Law’s Miranda.  I shall not tarry to draw out the full comparison here, but shall content myself with simply repeating Mr. Bain’s happy reference.  Only, I shall not content myself till all to whom my voice can reach, and who are able to enjoy only a first-rate book, have Mr. Bain’s book beside their Pilgrim’s Progress.  That morning, then, on which Mrs. Timorous, having nothing to do at home, set out with Mercy on a round of calls—­that was Mercy’s last idle morning for all her days.  For her mind was, ever after that, to be always busying of herself in doing, for when she had nothing to do for herself she would be making of hosen and garments for others, and would bestow them upon those that had need.  I will warrant her a good housewife, quoth Mr. Brisk to himself.  So much so that at any place they stopped on the way, even for a day and a night to rest and refresh themselves, Mercy would seek out all the poor and all the old people, and ere ever she was aware what she was doing, already a good report had spread abroad concerning the pilgrims and their pilgrimage.  At the same time, it must be told that poor Mercy’s heart was more heavy for the souls of the poor people than for their naked bodies and hungry bellies.  So much was this so that when the shepherds, Knowledge, Experience, Watchful, and Sincere, took her to a place where she saw one Fool and one Want-wit washing of an Ethiopian with intention to make him white, but the more they washed him the blacker he was, Mercy blushed and felt guilty before the shepherds,—­she so took home to her charitable heart the bootless work of Fool and Want-wit.  Mercy put on the Salvationist bonnet at her first outset to the Celestial City, and she never put it off till she came to that land where there are no more poor to make hosen and hats for, and no more Ethiopians to take to the fountain.