When Mrs. White’s eyes first fell on Mercy in the doorway, they rested on her with the same cold gaze which had so repelled her on their first interview.  But no sooner did she see the dish of mosses than her face lighted up, and exclaiming, “Oh, where did you get those partridge-berry vines?” she involuntarily stretched out her hands.  The ice was broken.  Mercy felt at home at once, and at once conceived a true sentiment of pity for Mrs. White, which never wholly died out of her heart.  Kneeling on the floor by her bed, she said eagerly,—­

“I am so glad you like them, Mrs. White.  Let me hold them down low, where you can look at them.”

Some subtle spell must have linked itself in Mrs. White’s brain with the dainty red partridge berries.  Her eyes filled with tears, as she lifted the vines gently in her fingers, and looked at them.  Mercy watched her with great surprise; but with the quick instinct of a poet’s temperament she thought, “She hasn’t seen them very likely since she was a little girl.”

“Did you use to like them when you were a child, Mrs. White?” she asked.

“I used to pick them when I was young,” replied Mrs. White, dreamily,—­“when I was young:  not when I was a child, though.  May I have one of them to keep?” she asked presently, still holding an end of one of the vines in her fingers.

“Oh, I brought them in for you, for Christmas,” exclaimed Mercy.  “They are all for you.”

Mrs. White was genuinely astonished.  No one had ever done this kind of thing for her before.  Stephen always gave her on her birthday and on Christmas a dutiful and somewhat appropriate gift, though very sorely he was often puzzled to select a thing which should not jar either on his own taste or his mother’s sense of utility.  But a gift of this kind, a simple little tribute to her supposed womanly love of the beautiful, a thoughtful arrangement to give her something pleasant to look upon for a time, no one had ever before made.  It gave her an emotion of real gratitude, such as she had seldom felt.

“You are very kind, indeed,—­very,” she said with emphasis, and in a gentler tone than Mercy had before heard from her lips.  “I shall have a great deal of comfort out of it.”

Then Mercy set the dish on a small table, and hung up the wreaths in the windows.  As she moved about the room lightly, now and then speaking in her gay, light-hearted voice, Mrs. White thought to herself,—­

“Steve was right.  She is a wonderful cheery body.”  And, long after Mercy had gone, she continued to think happily of the pleasant incident of the fresh bright face and the sweet voice.  For the time being, her jealous distrust of the possible effect of these upon her son slumbered.