She saw that there were but two courses for him,--either to leave the house, or to buy a semblance of peace at any cost.
"Flesh and blood can't stand up agin Mis' White," said Marty one day, in an irrepressible confidence to Mercy.

"An' the queerest thing is, that she'll never let go on you.

There ain't nothin' to hender my goin' away any day, an' there hain't been for twenty year; but she sez I'm to stay till she dies, an' I don't make no doubt I shall.

It's Mister Stephen I stay for, though, after all, more 'n 't is her.

I don't believe the Lord ever made such a man." Mercy's cheeks would burn after such a talk as this; and she would lavish upon Stephen every device of love and cheer which she could invent, to atone to him by hours, if possible, for the misery of days.
But the hours were few and far between.