e you John Norton the Trapper, or are you an ang--"

"Ye needn't sight agin," interrupted the old man. "Yis, I'm old John
Norton himself, nothin' better and nothin' wuss; and the man in the
chair here by my side is Wild Bill, and ye couldn't make an angel out
of him, ef ye tried from now till next Christmas. Yis, my good woman,
I'm John Norton, and this is Wild Bill, and we've come over the
mountain to wish ye a merry Christmas, ye and yer leetle uns, and help
ye keep the day; and, ye see, we've been stirrin' a leetle in yer
absence, and breakfast be waitin'. Wild Bill and me will jest go out
and cut a leetle more wood, while ye warm and wash yerself; and when
ye be ready to eat, ye may call us, and we'll see which can git into
the house fust."

So saying the Trapper, followed by his companion, passed out of the
door, while the poor woman, without a word, moved toward the fire,
and, casting one look at her children, at the table, at the food on
the hearthstone, dropped on her knees by a chair, and buried her face
in her hands.

"I say," said Wild Bill to the Trapper, as he crept softly away from
the door, to which he had returned to shut it more closely, "I say,
John Norton, the woman is on her knees by a chair."

"Very likely, very likely," returned the old man reverently; and then
he began to chop vigorously at a huge log, with his back toward his
comrade.

Perhaps some of you who read this tale will come sometime, when weary
and heart-sick, to something drearier than an empty house, some bleak,
cold day, some lonely morn, and with a starving heart and benumbed
soul,--ay, and empty-handed, too,--enter in only to find it swept and
garnished, and what you most needed and longed for waiting for you.
Then will you, too, drop upon your knees, and cover your face with
your hands, ashamed that you had murmured against the hardness of your
lot, or forgotten the goodness of Him who suffered you to be tried
only that you might more fully appreciate the triumph.

"My good woman," said the Trapper, when the breakfast was eaten,
"we've come, as we said, to spend the day with ye; and accordin' to
custom--and a pleasant un it be fur sartin--we've brought ye some
presents. A good many of them come from him who called on ye as he and
me passed through the lake last fall. I dare say ye remember him, and
he sartinly has remembered ye. Fur last evenin', when I was makin' up
a leetle pack to bring ye myself,--fur I conceited I had