She found standing there an elderly woman, with a sweet but care-worn face, who said eagerly, as soon as she appeared,-- "Are you Mrs.Philbrick ?" "Yes," said Mercy.

"Did you wish to see me ?" The woman hesitated a moment, as if trying to phrase her sentence, and then burst out impetuously, with a flood of tears,-- "Won't you come and help me make my husband come home.

He is so sick, and I believe he will die in that wretched old garret." Mercy looked at her in blank astonishment, and her first thought was that she must be insane; but the woman continued,-- "I'm Mrs.Wheeler.You never saw me before, but my husband's talked about you ever since he first saw you on the street, that day.

You're the only human being I've ever known him take a fancy to; and I do believe, if anybody could do any thing with him, you could." It seemed that, in addition to all his other eccentricities, "Old Man Wheeler" had the habit of disappearing from his home at intervals, leaving no clew behind him.

He had attacks of a morbid unwillingness to see a human face: during tkese attacks, he would hide himself, sometimes in one place, sometimes in another.