"I'm not discontented, Mr. Allen," answered Mercy, a little proudly. "I
never had a discontented moment in my life. I'm not so silly. I have never
yet seen the day which did not seem to me brimful and running over with
joys and delights; that is, except when I was for a little while bowed
down by a grief nobody could bear up under," she added, with a sudden
drooping of every feature in her expressive face, as she recalled the one
sharp grief of her life. "I don't see why a distinct longing for all sorts
of beautiful things need be in the least inconsistent with absolute
content. In fact, I know it isn't; for I have both."

Mr. Allen was not enough of an idealist to understand this. He looked
puzzled, and Mercy went on,--

"Why, Mr. Allen, I should like to have our home perfectly beautiful, just
like the most beautiful houses I have read about in books. I should like
to have the walls hung full of pictures, and the rooms filled full of
books; and I should like to have great greenhouses full of all the rare
and exquisite flowers of the whole world. I'd like one house like the
house you told me of, full of all the orchids, and another full of only
palms and ferns. I should like to wear always the costliest of silks, very
plain and never of bright colors, but heavy and soft and shining; and
laces that were like fleecy clouds when they are just scattering. I should
like to be perfectly beautiful, and to have perfectly beautiful people
around me. But all this doesn't make me one bit less contented. I care
just as much for my few little, old books, and my two or three pictures,
and our beds of sweet-williams and pinks. They all give me such pleasure
that I'm just glad I'm alive every minute.--What are you thinking of, Mr.
Allen!" exclaimed Mercy, breaking off and coloring scarlet, as she became
suddenly aware that her pastor was gazing at her with a scrutinizing look
she had never seen on his face before.