As the months went on, Mercy began to make friends.

One person after another observed her bright face, asked who she was, and came to seek her out.

"Who is that girl with fair hair and blue eyes, who, whenever you meet her in the street, always looks as if she had just heard some good news ?" was asked one day.

It was a noteworthy thing that this description was so instantly recognized by the person inquired of, that he had no hesitancy in replying,-- "Oh, that is a young widow from Cape Cod, a Mrs.Philbrick.She came last winter with her mother, who is an invalid.

They live in the old Jacobs house with the Whites." Among the friends whom Mercy thus met was a man who was destined to exercise almost as powerful an influence as Stephen White over her life.
This was Parson Dorrance.
Parson Dorrance had in his youth been settled as a Congregationalist minister.