h day was passed. On the ninth morning she
ascended to watch for her star of mercy. Clear and bright it stood over
against her beseeching gaze, set in the light liquid blue that overflows
the pathway of the opening day. She prayed earnestly as she gazed, for
she knew that there were but few hours of life in those dearest to
her. If human aid came not that day, some eyes, that would soon look
imploringly into hers, would be closed in death before that star would
rise again. Would she herself, with all her endurance and resisting
love, live to see it? Were they at length to perish? Great God! should
it be permitted that they, who had been preserved through so much,
should die at last so miserably?

Her eyes were dim, and her sight wavering. She could not distinguish
trees from men on the snow, but had they been near, she could have heard
them, for her ear had grown so sensitive that the slightest unaccustomed
noise arrested her attention. She went below with a heavier heart than
ever before. She had not a word of hope to answer the languid, inquiring
countenances that were turned to her face, and she was conscious that
it told the story of her despair. Yet she strove with some half-insane
words to suggest that somebody would surely come to them that day.
Another would be too late, and the pity of men's hearts and the mercy
of God would surely bring them. The pallor of death seemed already to be
stealing over the sunken countenances that surrounded her, and, weak as
she was, she could remain below but a few minutes together. She felt
she could have died had she let go her resolution at any time within the
last forty-eight hours. They repeated the Litany. The responses came so
feebly that they were scarcely audible, and the protracted utterances
seemed wearisome. At last it was over, and they rested in silence.

The sun mounted high and higher in the heavens, and when the day was
three or four hours old she placed her trembling feet again upon the
ladder to look out once more. The corpses of the dead lay always before
her as she reached the top-the mother and her son, and the little
boy, whose remains she could not even glance at since they had been
mutilated. The blanket that covered them could not shut out the horror
of the sight.

The rays of the sun fell on her with a friendly warmth, but she could
not look into the light that flooded the white expanse. Her eyes lacked
strength and steadiness, and she rested herself a