selfishness or wickedness in its object, as it had been by his selfish
mother. In Mercy, it was on a higher and healthier plane. Without being a
shade less loyal, she would be far clearer-sighted; would render, but not
surrender; would give a lifetime of service, but not a moment of
subjection. There was a shade of something feminine in Stephen's loyalty,
of something perhaps masculine in Mercy's; but Mercy's was the best, the
truest.

"I wouldn't allow my mother to treat a stranger like that," she thought
indignantly, as she walked away after Mrs. White's inhospitable invitation
to tea. "I wouldn't allow her. I would make her see the shamefulness of
it. What a weak man Mr. White must be!"

Yet if Mercy could have looked into the room she had just left, and have
seen Stephen listening with a face unmoved, save for a certain compression
of the mouth, and a look of patient endurance in the eyes, to a torrent of
ill-nature from his mother, she would have recognized that he had
strength, however much she might have undervalued its type.

"I should really think that you might have more consideration, Stephen,
than to be so late to tea, when you know it is all I have to look forward
to, all day long. You stood a good half hour talking with that woman, Did
you not know how late it was?"

"No, mother. If I had, I should have come in."

"I suppose you had your watch on, hadn't you?"

"Yes, mother."