Then she picked a few of the most beautiful vines, and, climbing up on the wall, sat down to arrange them with the maple-leaves she had already gathered.

She made a most picturesque picture as she sat there, in her severe black gown and quaint little black bonnet, on the stone wall, surrounded by the bright vines and leaves; her lap full of them, the ground at her feet strewed with them, her little black-gloved hands deftly arranging and rearranging them.

She looked as if she might be a nun, who had run away from her cloister, and coming for the first time in her life upon gay gauds of color, in strange fabrics, had sat herself down instantly to weave and work with them, unaware that she was on a highway.
This was the picture that Stephen White saw, as he came slowly up the road on his way home after an unusually wearying day.

He slackened his pace, and, perceiving how entirely unconscious Mercy was of his approach, deliberately studied her, feature, dress, attitude,--all, as scrutinizingly as if she had been painted on canvas and hanging on a wall.
"Upon my word," he said to himself, "she isn't bad-looking, after all.

I'm not sure that she isn't pretty.