perhaps more often called, "Widder Carr." Mercy had not thought--in her
utter inexperience of change, it could not have occurred to her--what a
very different thing it was to be simply unknown and poor people in a
strange place. The sense of all this smote upon her suddenly and keenly,
as they jolted along in the noisy old carriage on this dark, rainy night.
Stephen White's indifferent though kindly manner first brought to her the
thought, or rather the feeling, of this. Each new glimmer of the
home-lights deepened her sense of desolation. Every gust of rain that beat
on the carriage roof and windows made her feel more and more like an
outcast. She never forgot these moments. She used to say that in them she
had lived the whole life of the loneliest outcast that was ever born. Long
years afterward, she wrote a poem, called "The Outcast," which was so
intense in its feeling one could have easily believed that it was written
by Ishmael. When she was asked once how and when she wrote this poem, she
replied, "I did not write it: I lived it one night in entering a strange
town." In vain she struggled against the strange and unexpected emotion. A
nervous terror of arriving at the hotel oppressed her more and more;
although, thanks to Harley Allen's thoughtfulness, she knew that their
rooms were already engaged for them. She felt as if she would rather drive
on and on, in all the darkness and rain, no matter where, all night long,
rather than enter the door of the strange and public house, in which she
must give her name and her mother's name on the threshold.

When the carriage stopped, she moved so slowly to alight that her mother
exclaimed petulantly,--

"Dear me, child, what's the matter with you? Ain't you goin' to git out?
Ain't this the tavern?"

"Yes, mother, this is our place," said Mercy, in a low voice, unlike her