But in Stephen circumstance and place might as easily destroy as create happiness.

His enjoyment was as far inferior to Mercy's in genuineness and enduringness as is the shallow lake to the quenchless spring.

The waters of each may leap and sparkle alike, to the eye, in the sunshine; but when drought has fallen on the lake, and the place that knew it knows it no more, the spring is full, free, and glad as ever.
Mrs.White's pleasure in Mercy's presence was short-lived.

Long before the simple dinner was over, she had relapsed into her old forbidding manner, and into a silence which was more chilly than any words could have been.

The reason was manifest.