When Stephen entered his mother’s room that night, his heart gave a sudden bound at the sight of the green wreaths and the dish of ferns.  He saw them on fhe first instant after opening the door; he knew in the same instant that the hands of Mercy Philbrick must have placed them there; but, also, in that same brief instant came to him an involuntary impulse to pretend that he did not observe them; to wait till his mother should have spoken of them first, that he might know whether she were pleased or not by the gift.  So infinitely small are the first beginnings of the course of deceit into which tyranny always drives its victim.  It could not be called a deceit, the simple forbearing to speak of a new object which one observed in a room.  No; but the motive made it a sure seed of a deceit:  for when Mrs. White said, “Why, Stephen, you haven’t noticed the greens!  Look in the windows!” his exclamation of apparent surprise, “Why, how lovely!  Where did they come from?” was a lie.  It did not seem so, however, to Stephen.  It seemed to him simply a politic suppression of a truth, to save his mother’s feelings, to avoid a possibility of a war of words.  Mercy Philbrick, under the same circumstances, would have replied,—­

“Oh, yes, I saw them as soon as I came in.  I was waiting for you to tell me about them,” and even then would have been tortured by her conscience, because she did not say why she was waiting.

While his mother was telling him of Mercy’s call, and of the report Marty had brought back of the decorations of the rooms, Stephen stood with his face bent over the ferns, apparently absorbed in studying each leaf minutely; then he walked to the windows and examined the wreaths.  He felt himself so suddenly gladdened by these tokens of Mercy’s presence, and by his mother’s evident change of feeling towards her, that he feared his face would betray too much pleasure; he feared to speak, lest his voice should do the same thing.  He was forced to make a great effort to speak in a judiciously indifferent tone, as he said,—­

“Indeed, they are very pretty.  I never saw mosses so beautifully arranged; and it was so thoughtful of her to bring them in for you for Christmas Eve.  I wish we had something to send in to them, don’t you?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking,” said his mother, “that we might ask them to come in and take dinner with us to-morrow.  Marty’s made some capital mince-pies, and is going to roast a turkey.  I don’t believe they’ll be goin’ to have any thing better, do you, Stephen?”

Stephen walked very suddenly to the fire, and made a feint of rearranging it, that he might turn his face entirely away from his mother’s sight.  He was almost dumb with astonishment.  A certain fear mingled with it.  What meant this sudden change?  Did it portend good or evil?  It seemed too sudden, too inexplicable, to be genuine.  Stephen had yet to learn the magic power which Mercy Philbrick had to compel the liking even of people who did not choose to like her.