ad not looked up. Here is Thomas with the sleigh for the
children, and, preceding it, is Ponto in his highest glee--now he dashes
forward with a few quick bounds, and turns to bark a challenge at Thomas
and the horses--now he plunges into a snow-drift, and mining his way
through it, emerges on the other side to shake himself vigorously and
bark again.

Has Ponto forgotten his master? Ponto, who lies so often at his
mistress's feet, and looks up wistfully into her face, as if he
understood much, but would like to ask more, and seems, with his low
whine, to put the question--Why, when his master went away so many
months ago, he had never come back again:--Ponto, who would lie for
hours, when he could steal an access to them, beside the trunks which
came home unaccompanied by their owner, and which still stood in a
closed room, which was to the household like the silent chamber of
death. There had been for the mourner a soothing power in Ponto's dumb
sympathy, even when, with the caprice of suffering, she could not bear
the obtrusiveness of human pity.

Out trooped the merry, noisy children, well equipped with caps and
comforters. Good Thomas arranged them on the seats, and wrapped the
buffalo-robes about them, and encircling his special darling, a
prattling little girl of three years old, with his careful arm, away
they went, down the hill and out of sight.

With a sigh of relief, the mother drew her chair to the hearth, and
resolved, for that one day, to give over the struggle, and let sorrow
have its way. She dwelt on all the circumstances of the change, which so
suddenly had darkened her life. She permitted her thoughts to run upon
themes from which she had sedulously kept them, thus indulging, and as
it were, nursing her grief. She recalled the thoughtful love which had
been hers till it seemed as natural and as necessary to her as the air
she breathed. She had been an indulged wife, constantly cared for, and
lavishly supplied with everything that heart could wish. The natural
sensitiveness of her temperament had been heightened by too much
tenderness; she had been encouraged to cling like a vine, and to expect
support from without herself. She was still young and beautiful. She was
accustomed to be loved and admired by many, but that was nothing to her
in comparison with the calm unvarying estimation in which she had been
held by one faithful heart. How was she to live without this essential
element of her life?