little means
had become exhausted. It was now, too, midwinter, and the snow lay heavy
and deep through all the surrounding forests, while storms still seemed
gathering in the heavens, and the driving wind roared amid the neighboring
pines, and rocked her puny mansion.

3. The last herring smoked upon the coals before her; it was the only
article of food she possessed, and no wonder her forlorn, desolate state
brought up in her lone bosom all the anxieties of a mother when she looked
upon her children: and no wonder, forlorn as she was, if she suffered the
heart swellings of despair to rise, even though she knew that He, whose
promise is to the widow and to the orphan, can not forget his word.

4. Providence had many years before taken from her her eldest son, who
went from his forest home to try his fortune on the high seas, since which
she had heard no tidings of him; and in her latter time had, by the hand
of death, deprived her of the companion and staff of her earthly
pilgrimage, in the person of her husband. Yet to this hour she had
upborne; she had not only been able to provide for her little flock, but
had never lost an opportunity of ministering to the wants of the miserable
and destitute.

5. The indolent may well bear with poverty while the ability to gain
sustenance remains. The individual who has but his own wants to supply may
suffer with fortitude the winter of want; his affections are not wounded,
his heart is not wrung. The most desolate in populous cities may hope, for
charity has not quite closed her hand and heart, and shut her eyes on
misery.

6. But the industrious mother of helpless and depending children, far from
the reach of human charity, has none of these to console her. And such a
one was the widow of the Pine Cottage; but as she bent over the fire, and
took up the last scanty remnant of food to spread before her children, her
spirits seemed to brighten up, as by some sudden and mysterious impulse,
and Cowper's beautiful lines came uncalled across her mind:

"Judge not the Lord by feeble sense.
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning Providence
He hides a smiling face."

7. The smoked herring was scarcely laid upon the table, when a gentle rap
at the door, and the loud barking of a dog, attracted the attention of the
family. The children flew to open it, and a weary traveler, in tattered
garments and in apparently indifferent health; entered, and begged