Tarnish, by any meaner thing,
The glory of our name?
[113] Pedˊ-i-gree, lineage, line of descent from a progenitor.
[114] Herˊ-it-age, an estate that passes from an ancestor to an heir.
[115] Im-morˊ-tal, exempt from death.
[116] Blaˊ-zon, a coat of arms.
XVI.—THE WIDOW OF THE PINE COTTAGE.
1. It was Saturday night, and the widow of the Pine Cottage sat by her blazing fagots,[117] with her five tattered children at her side, endeavoring, by listening to the artlessness, of their prattle,[118] to dissipate[119] the heavy gloom that pressed upon her mind. For a year, her own feeble hand had provided for her helpless family, for she had no supporter: she thought of no friend in all the wide, unfriendly world around.
2. But that mysterious Providence, the wisdom of whose ways is above human comprehension, had visited her with wasting sickness, and her little means had become exhausted. It was now, too, mid-winter, 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 among the neighboring pines, and rocked her puny[120] 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.