The nurse hesitated. "Not a pretty name, like yours," she said,
and hesitated again. "Call me 'Mercy Merrick,' " she added, after
a moment's consideration.

Had she given an assumed name? Was there some unhappy celebrity
attached to her own name? Miss Roseberry did not wait to ask
herself these questions. "How can I thank you," she exclaimed,
gratefully, "for your sisterly kindness to a stranger like me?"

"I have only done my duty," said Mercy Merrick, a little coldly.
"Don't speak of it."

"I must speak of it. What a situation you found me in when the
French soldiers had driven the Germans away! My
traveling-carriage stopped; the horses seized; I myself in a
strange country at nightfall, robbed of my money and my luggage,
and drenched to the skin by the pouring rain! I am indebted to
you for shelter in this place--I am wearing your clothes--I
should have died of the fright and the exposure but for you. What
return can I make for such services as these?"

Mercy placed a chair for her guest near the captain's table, and
seated herself, at some little distance, on an old chest in a
corner of the room. "May I ask you a question?" she said,
abruptly.

"A hundred questions," cried Grace, "if you like." She looked at
the expiring fire, and at the dimly visible figure of her
companion seated in the obscurest corner of the room. "That