or those whom He deigns to
let live."

Beth, standing beside him, heard the words, and wonderingly contrasted
him with Parson Richardson, who remained shut up with his fourth wife
in his fat living, making cent. per cent. out of his school, and
heedless of the parish, while one so old and feeble as Canon Hunter
stood by his people at all times, careless of himself, enduring
hardship, braving danger, a man among men in spite of age and
weakness, by reason of great love.

The pinch of poverty was severely felt again that winter in the
Caldwell household. Beth, who was growing rapidly, became torpid from
excessive self-denial; she tried to do without enough, to make it as
if there were one mouth less to feed, and the privation told upon her;
her energy flagged; when she went out, she found it difficult to drag
herself home, and the exuberant spirit of daring, which found
expression in naughty enterprises, suddenly subsided. She poached on
principle still for the benefit of the family; but the cool confidence
born of a sort of inward certainty, which is a premonition of
success, if it is not the power that compels it, was wanting; and it
was as if her own doubts when she set the snares released the
creatures from the fascination that should have lured them, so that
she caught but little. The weather, too, was very severe; every one in
the house, including Beth, was more or less ill from colds and coughs,
and Aunt Victoria suffered especially; but none of them complained,
not even to themselves; they just endured. They felt for each other,
however.

"Mamma, don't you think Aunt Victoria should have a fire in her room?"
Beth said one day.

"I do, my dear child," Mrs. Caldwell answered tartly; "but _I_ can't
afford the fuel, and she can't afford it either."

"I wish I had known that," said Beth. "I wouldn't have let her afford
to take me away in the summer, spending all her money for nothing."

"What a grateful and gracious child you are!" her mother exclaimed.

Beth went frowning from the room.

The snow was several feet deep on the ground already, and was still
falling heavily. Beth put on her things and stole out, her idea being
to gather sticks to make a fire for the old lady; but after a weary
trudge she was obliged to return empty-handed, wet, weary, and
disheartened. The sticks were deep down under the snow; there were
none to be seen.

"O God!" Beth prayed as she stumbled home, raising her pinched face to