“No, your father is not here,” they said in answer to my inquiries. “He started for home before night. It is such a terrible storm, he may have stopped on the way.”
“More likely that he has fallen in the snow,” said mother; “it is frightfully cold, and the wind is drifting it in heaps.”
There were few words spoken as we went back. The storm had somewhat subsided, and far as the eye could reach spread out before us one mass of fleecy whiteness.
How our hearts thrilled, and then stood still, as we passed an eminence where the snow lay high and uneven: under that white covering father might be buried.
“Here is an uneven track,” and mother pointed to a pile of snow at the foot of the hill, and very near our own door. I held up the lantern, but for a moment could not move onward. So near us, and still we had gone so far! Nerving myself at last, I followed the steps, now filled with snow, but still perceptible.
It was as we feared. He had started for home, and had reached the foot of the hill, when he fell, too chilled or too insensible to rise.
Oh the agony of that night! He was our father, and deeply as he had erred, we loved him. Such a terrible death, and we knew not where to look for comfort.
IV.
Jennie and I were alone now, for our new mother had taken her babe and gone back to her parents. What could we do? I thought of others who had worked out of just such extremities, and resolved that I would seek employment, but not of Mr. Jeffries.
So making myself as tidy as possible, and curling Jennie’s hair over my fingers as I had seen my own mother do, we shut the door of our mountain home, and walked resolutely down to the village. Sure of success, I kept Jennie laughing as I portrayed the future in glowing colors, telling her of all that I would do, and the pretty home that I would make of my own, where we would always live together, with plenty of books and flowers—her sweet blue eyes looking up with such a glad earnestness.