“You have the right idea of it, Ruthie,” he said.  “Let Mercy take her pleasure in that way if it’s all the pleasure she can get.  But perhaps a better mind as well as a better body may come to the poor child in time.”  Then to Ruth he added, more personally:  “Remember you have a friend in here behind the green lamps.  Don’t forget to come to him with any troubles you may have.  Perhaps I do not look it, but I am something like a fairy godmother—­ I have a wonderful power of transmogrification.  I can often turn dark clouds inside out and show you the silver on the other side.”

“I believe that, Doctor Davison,” she whispered, and squeezed his hand hard, running after Helen the next moment down the walk.

CHAPTER XVII

 Tormenting Mercy

After they had awakened Tubby and urged him into something resembling a trot they got into Cheslow proper by degrees.  By the light of the very sunshiny afternoon Ruth thought the town looked far prettier than any place she had ever seen.  This side of the railroad the houses were mostly old-fashioned, and there were few stores.  There were many lawns and pretty, old-time gardens, while the elms and maples met in green arches overhead so that many of the streets were like rustic tunnels, the sun sifting through the thick branches to make only a fine, lacework pattern upon the walks and driveway.

They crossed the railroad near the station and struck into Market Street.  Ruth would not allow Helen to drive her directly to the Curtis cottage.  She had remembered Doctor Davison’s words, and she thought that perhaps Mercy Curtis might be looking from the window and see her visitor arrive in the pony cart.  So she got down at the corner, promising to meet her friend at that spot in an hour.

She could see the pretty cottage belonging to the railroad station agent before she had walked far.  Its garden on the side was already a bower.  But the rustic arbor on which the grape vines were trained was not yet sufficiently covered to yield any shelter from the street; therefore Ruth did not expect to find it occupied.

Just before she reached the cottage, however, she saw two little girls ahead of her, hesitating on the walk.  They were talking seriously together when Ruth approached within earshot, and she heard one say to the other: 

“Now, she’ll be there in the window.  We mustn’t notice her, no matter what she does or says.  You know what mamma said.”

The other child was sobbing softly.  “But she made me, oh, such a face!  And she chopped her teeth at me just as though she’d bite me!  I think she’s the very hatefulest thing—­”

“Hush! she’s greatly to be pitied,” said the older sister, with an air and in a tone that showed she copied it from the “grown-ups” whom she had heard discussing poor Mercy Curtis.

“I wish we’d gone ’round the other way,” complained the other child.