to go out; but the woman,
with her elbows on her knees, and her face settled firmly between her
hands, still sat with eyes that saw not the feeble flame at which they
so steadily gazed.

"I will do it, _I will do it!_" she suddenly exclaimed. "I will make
one more effort. They shall not starve while I have strength to try.
Perhaps God will aid me. They say He always does at the last pinch,
and He certainly sees that I am there now. I wonder if He's been
waiting for me to get just where I am before He helped me. There is
one more chance left, and I'll make the trial. I'll go down to the
shore where I saw the big tracks in the snow. It's a long way, but I
shall get there somehow. If God is going to be good to me, He won't
let me freeze or faint on the way. Yes, I'll creep into bed now, and
try to get a little sleep, for I must be strong in the morning." And
with these words the poor woman crept off to her bed, and burrowed
down, more like an animal than a human being, beside her little ones,
as they lay huddled close together and asleep, down in the rags.

What angel was it that followed her to her miserable couch, and
stirred kindly feelings in her bosom? Some sweet one, surely; for she
shortly lifted herself to a sitting posture, and, gently drawing down
the old blanket with which the children, for warmth's sake, had
wrapped their heads, looked as only a mother might at the three little
faces lying side by side, and, bending tenderly over them, she placed
a gentle kiss upon the forehead of each; then she nestled down again
in her own place, and said, "Perhaps God will help me." And with this
sentence, half a prayer and half a doubt, born on the one hand from
that sweet faith which never quite deserts a woman's bosom, and on the
other from that bitter experience which had made her seem in her own
eyes deserted of God, she fell asleep.

She, too, dreamed; but her dreaming was only the prolongation of her
waking thoughts; for long after her eyes closed she moved uneasily on
her hard couch, and muttered, "Perhaps God will. Perhaps--"

Sad is it for us who are old enough to have tasted the bitterness of
that cup which life sooner or later presents to all lips, and have
borne the burden of its toil and fretting, that our vexations and
disappointments pursue us even in our slumber, disturbing our sleep
with reproachful visions and the sound of voices whose upbraiding robs
us of our otherwise peaceful repose. Perhaps somewh