light was falling on her page. She looked up, and saw, with satisfaction, that the snow had ceased to fall; then, placing on the fire a log lying ready on the hearth, and casting a light covering over her shoulders, she continued her reading. Yet, notwithstanding her scarf, and the log soon brightly burning, she failed to grow warm, and after a while she rose, that she might fetch from her chamber a warmer wrap.

As she passed into the hall and up the stairs the air felt keenly, thrillingly cold, and when she reached her chamber she found sponge and towels frozen into rigidity, and a cake of ice in ewer and basin. The same chill, white landscape stretched before her as in the morning, but the sky looked higher, clearer, though there was no hint of blue or of the sun shining. She shivered as she stood beside the window, and wrapping the soft Berlin shawl she had taken from her drawer closely round her she hastened down the stairs, turning, not into the dining-room, but into the kitchen.

Mary was still sitting in her place in the easy chair, but a thick plaid had taken the place of the kerchief she had been wearing. and Miss Braden noticed that her breathing seemed more laboured than usual.

"It has turned uncommon cold this last hour, miss," she said, "'twill be a bitter, bitter night. It 'minds me of the winter, this does, when all the French army was starved and lost in the snow, oat away in Russia. I was but a child then, but I'minds it well." "Your breathing is difficult this afternoon," her mistress said anxiously, for she had paused between every few words.

"Not so very, Miss Agnes; course the cold fiads the weak place," Mary replied, cheerfully. Jane was at the moment filling a coalscattle with coal and sticks.

"I'm going to light a fire in your room, ma'am," she said; "it will be an uncommon cold night, as Mrs. Stenner says; that it will."

"Do you think there is any need? Miss Braden replied, dubiously, divided in mind between the comfort of having a fire, and her disinclination to dust and smoke intruding on the delicate cleanliness of her chamber.

"Yes, ma'am ; such a night as we are going to have," was Jane's decisive deliverance. "It was just such another night my poor grandfather died sudden, sixteen year ago come next week, just of the cold of the bedroom, the doctor said. I'd gone over to Norbury in the morning-times I've wished I'd never gone—there was no snow, but the cold went through one, and they asked me to stop the night; and poor grandfather, he was always good-natured, he went up into the attic to sleep, and I was to sleep with grand

mother. He was not that old, only sixty-five. His breath was short by times, but he went to work mostly; and that day he seemed well enough, and we all eat a hearty supper of pea-soup to send us warm to bed. But in the middle of the night grandmother heard a strange noise overhead, and she just threw on a bit of clothes and ran up, and in a minute she ran down, and told me to get up and run quick for the doctor, in the next street, for she thought grandfather was dying; he could not breathe at all. I jumped up, and dressed, and ran, and I rung the night bell, and I knocked and rung; and it seemed so long waiting, and the cold cut through like a knife, and the stars shone and glittered, as if they'd come down out of the sky. And when the doctor came to the window he was not willing to come; but at last he said he would, and I ran back; but he might as well have stopped where he was, for before he came poor grandfather was gone. And, ma'am, the doctor said at the inquest it was just sleeping in that cold room that dreadful cold night, and the pea soup did no good either; his heart was weak, and the cold just stopped it. And, ma'am, the coroner, he said, as how elderly people should not sleep nights like as that without a bit of fire in the grate. Not as you are elderly, ma'am ; but you ain't very strong, and a bit of fire is company like; and it's lonesome now Miss Annie's gone.”

So the fire was lighted, and when the night came Miss Braden was glad. In coming through the hall and up the stairs it seemed to her as if the exceeding cold would stop her own breathing, and when she went to the window of her chamber and drew aside the curtains and the blind, the panes were thickly covered with ice tracery.

Tired with the day's dreariness she quickly fell asleep, and she slept heavily.

But an hour past midnight she awoke suddenly. Her first sensation was of the exceeding coldness of the night, Then she became aware of some one moving in the house, and, for a moment, she thought of burglars, till, listening, she recognised Jane's step and also heard laboured breathing and suffocating coughing. Then she knew what it meant, and, dressing hastily, she went across the ice-cold landing to the room occupied by the servants.

The aged Mary was sitting up in bed, labouring, struggling, fighting for breath. Jane was mixing linseed-meal and mustard; a long-spouted kettle on the glowing fire sent forth its helpful vapour. The sufferer turned her eyes on her friend and mistress as she entered the room and came and stood beside the bed, but she could not speak.

"I was coming to you, ma'am, when I'd a put on the poultice," Jane said, not stopping a moment in what she was doing, and

looking pale and anxious.

"It's all of this dreadful night,

ma'am. I've kep' up the fire, but the cold gets in somehow." "Has she had any of her medicine ?" inquired Miss Braden. "Yes, ma'am; but 'twas hard work to swallow."

Again the pained eyes were turned on the mistress, and a hand was reached out, which Agnes clasped, and held while she tried to speak some words of loving sympathy. She feared Mary would perceive how cold and trembling her own hand was.

A sickening fear had fallen upon her. These symptoms were by no means unfamiliar, but they appeared now in such a severe and aggravated form, that an almost certain conviction was taking possession of her mind that her old friend would not survive the night. That her death would be a grief she had long felt, let it come when or how it might. She had known her so long, she was the last strongly connecting link between the present and the longago past. There had been such faithful service on Mary's part, such watchful care of late years on her own. It would be hard to part, whenever the parting came. But to come so suddenly; no time to prepare the mind for the blow, no possibility of farewell words; departing speechless in agonising gaspings! And to-night! The coming of death into a house was solemn at any time, but in such a night as this-no possibility of sending for help, or of help coming, blocked in by the treacherous snow, and the fierce, relentless cold-it would be dreadful, most dreadful!

For two hours the contest went on, a doubtful struggle between life and death. All that could be thought of was done by Miss Braden and by Jane, and, amid the suffocating panting, the sufferer tried to express by signs her grateful sense of their eager endeavours.

At length, slowly, the difficulty of breathing abated a little, and, with many pauses, Mary whispered, "Miss Agnes, deardon't fret. I think-I shall-win through it. If the Lord-calls -I'm ready-but-I'd rather not-to-night-'cause of you. Thank you-both."

The effort of speaking had brought back the coughing, and they begged her not to try to speak; and presently the coughing ceased again, her respiration grew quieter, and at length she slept; though, as mistress and maid sat beside the bed, watching, she looked so pale and worn, that once or twice they thought the end had come, and that she had departed in her sleep. So the night wore away.

But dreary and dispiriting as had been the preceding days, and anxious and distressing the night, joy came in the morning. Very weak and exhausted was Mary, yet evidently better; and when Agnes looked forth, the sky was clear, and there was no sign of

returning snow. It was still intensely cold, but, by-and-by, the sun shone, moderating it a little, and changing the dead white landscape into brightness. And before noon the Rector, who, with his family, had been feeling very anxious respecting the blockaded residents in Firtree Cottage, forced his way over and through the snow, sometimes sinking knee-deep; and approaching by the back door, the front being still firmly blocked, surprised Miss Braden by his knock and cheery voice, as she stood by the kitchen fire preparing some delicate nourishment for her invalid. How pleasant it was to see the face of a friend! How cheering when, yet further casting ceremony aside, be entered the kitchen, and while Miss Braden finished her culinary operations listened to her account of Mary's illness, sympathised with and comforted her, continuing his cheerful conversation in the dining-room, after Jane had taken possession of the tray, and carried it upstairs, and presently ascended himself to the sick chamber, to speak kindly words, and to pray beside the bed. Yet, more than all this, he was the bearer of letters which brought good tidings. For the postman, after an intermission of two days, had that morning, with great fatigue, and no little risk, reached Woodborough from Norbury, and very thankful he had been to be allowed to leave the letters for Firtree Cottage in the charge of the Rector.

Not until he was about to leave did her visitor produce the letters for Miss Braden, rightly divining that somewhat of impatience to peruse would interfere with the full pleasure and advantage of this needed social intercourse. As soon as she had bade her friend and minister farewell she eagerly looked over the letters, and seized on one-a letter from Annie! It was long and loving, written on ship-board at frequent intervals, in readiness for the opportunity of sending which came at last. A hasty glance, assuring herself that at the time of writing her child was well and happy; then she tore open another envelope, knowing from whence it came a brief note, but gladdening. The friend so seriously ill was now pronounced out of danger. There was beside a long epistle from Miriam, and a new year's greeting, rather late in coming, from yet another friend.

Gathering up her treasures, she went to Mary's room, and softly seating herself near the bed, for the patient was sleeping, she there read and re-read Annie's letter with unabated interest, then passed to Miriam's four-page discursion on matters personal and general. When Mary awaked, her dim eyes brightened as, very gently, her mistress showed her the letter, and told how hitherto the voyage had been fair and prosperous, and Annie had suffered little from seasickness, and was well and happy, all but missing her dear aunt, her true mother; but Donald was so good, so inexpressibly dear!

-with much more concerning all she had seen and felt, which need not be recorded here.

"I'd like to get better and stay with you a while longer till you get a bit used to Miss Annie being away," Mary said, after a while; "you would miss me, a little."

"Oh, not a little; very, very much. I hope I may keep you some years yet," was the reply.

A smile of loving pleasure passed over the pale face. "We must leave it in His hands," she said, and closing her eyes, she again slept.

Their treatment had been entirely right; nothing more or better could have been done had he been in daily attendance; the patient was progressing quite favourably, was the satisfactory dictum of the doctor, when at last a visit had become practicable. That was a great comfort. And when the thaw came, it came very quietly. That such a mass of snow should disappear without any attendant evils or inconveniences was scarcely possible; but most of the dire catastrophes which had been foreboded failed to come. And when Agnes saw the branches of the trees standing out once more, quite unencumbered, against the blue sky, and the weight of snow falling off the perennial shrubs, showing their leaves again; and when, at length, in the fields, first here and there, then in long reaches, the grass appeared, fresh and green; and when, by-and-by, only following the line of the hedges was the snow visible at all, she was glad, she thought, a little, as Noah must have been, when first "the tops of the mountains were seen," and presently, "behold, the face of the ground was dry." And in her gladness she felt almost as though the winter were already over and gone, and very close at hand the pleasant Spring-time.

CHAPTER IX.-MORE LONELY STILL.

Nearly four months had passed, and Spring was in very deed gladdening the earth.

All around Firtree Cottage was brightness and beauty. The sky was blue, the sun shone, the trees wore their freshest green, the fields were silvered with daisies and yellow with buttercups or with the paler gold of the cowslip; the garden was gay with flowers, and birds were fluttering hither and thither, and singing merrily from early morn all through the sunny day. But in the cottage itself there was stillness, and the blinds were drawn down, shutting out the glory and the gladsomeness. For death, which had come so near, and yet had turned away that silent, lonely winter night, had entered now in the clear daylight, amid the singing and the blossoming, the stir and young joyousness of re