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.