love's optics! I doubt if men ever watch long enough, and longingly
enough, for a woman's coming, to be so familiar with the phenomenon.
Stephen White, however, had more than once during these four weeks
quickened his pace to overtake some slender figure clad in black, never
doubting that it was Mercy Philbrick, until he came so near that his eyes
were forced to tell him the truth. It was truly a strange thing that he
and Mercy did not once meet during all these weeks. It was no doubt an
important element in the growth of their relation, this interval of
unacknowledged and combated curiosity about each other. Nature has a
myriad of ways of bringing about her results. Seed-time and harvest are
constant, and the seasons all keep their routine; but no two fields have
the same method or measure in the summer's or the winter's dealings.
Hearts lie fallow sometimes; and seeds of love swell very big in the
ground, all undisturbed and unsuspected.

When Mercy and her mother drove up to the house, Stephen was standing at
his mother's window. It was just at dusk.

"Here they are, mother," he said. "I think I will go out and meet them."

Mrs. White lifted her eyes very slowly towards her son, and spoke in the
measured syllables and unvibrating tone which always marked her utterance
when she was displeased.

"Do you think you are under any obligation to do that? Suppose they had
hired a house of you in some other part of the town: would you have felt
called upon to pay them that attention? I do not know what the usual
duties of a landlord are. You know best."

Stephen colored. This was the worst of his mother's many bad traits,--an