The Parson was Mercy's only frequent visitor; and Stephen knew very well that he had become her teacher and her guide, that she referred every question to his decision, and was guided implicitly by his taste and wish in her writing and in her studies.

But, when Stephen was a boy in college, Parson Dorranee had seemed to him an old man; and he now seemed venerable.

Stephen could not have been freer from a lover's jealousy of him, if he had been Mercy's own father.

Perhaps, if his instinct had been truer, it might have quickened Mercy's.

She was equally unaware of the real nature of the Parson's regard for her.