responsible for her annoyance.

As soon as Stephen's eyes fell on her face, on this occasion, he felt with
a sense of almost terror that he had made a fatal mistake, and he knew
instantly that it must be much later than he had supposed; but he plunged
bravely in, like a man taking a header into a pool he fears he may drown
in, and began to give a voluble account of how he had found Mrs. Philbrick
sitting on their stone wall, so absorbed in looking at the bright leaves
that she had not even seen the house. He ran on in this strain for some
minutes, hoping that his mother's mood might soften, but in vain. She
listened with the same stony, unresponsive look on her face, never taking
the stony, unresponsive eyes from his face; and, as soon as he stopped
speaking, she said in an equally stony voice,--

"Mrs. Philbrick, will you be so good as to take off your bonnet and take
tea with us? It is already long past our tea-hour!"

Mercy sprang to her feet, and said impulsively, "Oh, no, I thank you. I
did not dream that it was so late. My mother will be anxious about me. I
must go. I am very sorry I came in. Good-evening."

"Good-evening, Mrs. Philbrick," in the same slow and stony syllables, came
from Mrs. White's lips, and she turned her head away immediately.

Stephen, with his face crimson with mortification, followed Mercy to the
door. In a low voice, he said, "I hope you will be able to make allowances
for my mother's manner. It is all my fault. I know that she can never bear
to have me late at meals, and I ought never to allow myself to forget the
hour. It is all my fault"