a plain, straight, black gown like a nun's, with one narrow fold of
transparent white at her throat, tied carelessly by long floating ends of
black ribbon; her wavy brown hair blown about her eyes by the wind, her
cheeks flushed with the keen air, and her eyes bright with excitement.
Mercy could not be called even a pretty woman; but she had times and
seasons of looking beautiful, and this was one of them. The hostler, who
was rubbing down his horses in the door of the barn, came out
wide-mouthed, and exclaimed under his breath,--

"Gosh! who's she?" with an emphasis on that feminine, personal pronoun
which was all the bitterer slur on the rest of womankind in that
neighborhood, that he was so unconscious of the reflection it conveyed.
The cook and the stable-boy also came running to the kitchen door, on
hearing the hostler's exclamation; and they, too, stood gazing at the
unconscious Mercy, and each, in their own way, paying tribute to her
appearance.

"That's the gal thet comed last night with her mother. Darned sight
better-lookin' by daylight than she wuz then!" said the stable-boy.

"Hm! boys an' men, ye 're all alike,--all for looks," said the cook, who
was a lean and ill-favored spinster, at least fifty years old. "The gal
isn't any thin' so amazin' for good looks, 's I can see; but she's got
mighty sarchin' eyes in her head. I wonder if she's a lookin' for somebody
they're expectin'."

"Steve White he was with 'em down to the depot," replied the stable-boy.
"Seth sed he handed on 'em into the kerridge, 's if they were regular
topknots, sure enough."