"I do believe it's a kind of Providence!" and drew a letter from his
pocket, which he had only two days before received from Stephen White.
"Mercy," he went on, "I believe I've got the very thing you want right
here;" and he read her the concluding paragraph of the letter, in which
Stephen had said: "Meantime, I am waiting as patiently as I can for a
tenant for the other half of this house. It seems to be very hard to find
just the right sort of person. I cannot take in any of the mill
operatives. They are noisy and untidy; and the bare thought of their being
just the other side of the partition would drive my mother frantic. I wish
so much I could get some people in that would be real friends for her. She
is very lonely. She never leaves her bed; and I have to be away all day."

Mercy's face lighted up. She liked the sound of each word that this
unknown man wrote. Very eagerly she questioned Mr. Allen about the town,
its situation, its healthfulness, and so forth. As he gave her detail
after detail, she nodded her head with increasing emphasis, and finally
exclaimed: "That is precisely such a spot as Dr. Wheeler said we ought to
go to. I think you're right, Mr. Allen. It's a Providence. And I'd be so
glad to be good to that poor old woman, too. What a companion she'd be for
mother! that is, if I could keep them from comparing notes for ever about
their diseases. That's the worst of putting invalid old women together,"
laughed Mercy with a kindly, merry little laugh.

Mr. Allen had visited Penfield only once. When he and Stephen were boys at
school together, he had passed one of the short vacations at Stephen's
house. He remembered very little of Stephen's father and mother, or of
their way of life. He was at the age when house and home mean little to
boys, except a spot where shelter and food are obtained in the enforced
intervals between their hours of out-door life. But he had never forgotten
the grand out-look and off-look from the town. Lying itself high up on the