MERCY PHILBRICK'S CHOICE. 1876 I. _To one who found us on a starless night, All helpless, groping in a dangerous way, Where countless treacherous hidden pitfalls lay, And, seeing all our peril, flashed a light To show to our bewildered, blinded sight, By one swift, clear, and piercing ray, The safe, sure path,--what words could reach the height Of our great thankfulness? And yet, at most, The most he saved was this poor, paltry life Of flesh, which is so little worth its cost, Which eager sows, but may not stay to reap, And so soon breathless with the strain and strife, Its work half-done, exhausted, falls asleep._ II. _But unto him who finds men's souls astray In night that they know not is night at all, Walking, with reckless feet, where they may fall Each moment into deadlier deaths than slay The flesh,--to him whose truth can rend away From such lost souls their moral night's black pall,-- Oh, unto him what words can hearts recall Which their deep gratitude finds fit to say? No words but these,--and these to him are best:-- That, henceforth, like a quenchless vestal flame, His words of truth shall burn on Truth's pure shrine; His memory be truth worshipped and confessed; Our gratitude and love, the priestess line, Who serve before Truth's altar, in his name._ Mercy Philbrick's Choice. Chapter I. It was late in the afternoon of a November day. The sky had worn all day that pale leaden gray color, which is depressing even to the least sensitive of souls. Now, at sunset, a dull red tint was slowly stealing over the west; but the gray cloud was too thick for the sun to pierce, and the struggle of the crimson color with the unyielding sky only made the heavens look more stern and pitiless than before. Stephen White stood with his arms folded, leaning on the gate which shut off, but seemed in no wise to separate, the front yard of the house in which he lived from the public highway. There is something always pathetic in the attempt to enforce the idea of seclusion and privacy, by building a fence around houses only ten or twelve feet away from the public road, and only forty or fifty feet from each other. Rows of picketed palings and gates with latches and locks seem superfluous, when the passer-by can look, if he likes, into the very centre of your sitting-room, and your neighbors on the right hand and on the left can overhear every word you say on a summer night, where windows are open.