"Blessed is he that considereth the poor, the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble."
Or,—
"If any of you see a brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?"
She was not unmindful of the poor; she had helped Mrs. Barnes in various little ways. Why must she feel so condemned? she asked herself again and again.
With fair weather came the cold again; came stealing down upon the sleeping world like a thief in the night. Miss Rachel was unusually tired and slept very soundly, so that she did not waken even when the fire on her hearth had died out, and the cold become so intense in her room that the windows were frost covered, and the breath of the sleeper went up in little clouds of smoke. She stirred uneasily several times, and was just awake enough to know that she was cold, and not awake enough to bestir herself and get more covering. For a few minutes she lay in that half-waking state, thinking she ought, and would, and must rouse up and get more blankets. Finally, she thought she had done so and slept on.
Very soon after that she found herself far away from her own home, trying to walk over a floor of solid ice. She gazed about her in horror! The place was a large, deep pit, lighted by a lurid glare. Whichever way she turned her eyes, she saw nothing but ice, icy floor and icy walls, smooth and shining like glass. She clutched at them to save her sliding steps, but there was nothing to hold to; her hands slipped and she fell in a heap on the floor. She looked wildly above her for a way of escape. At the top of the pit she saw pretty rooms, with bright fires and happy-looking people sitting about sewing, reading and chatting. She shrieked for help, but they only shook their heads and went smilingly on with their occupations.
On one side she saw the Widow Barnes and her children. They sat amidst piles of blankets, heaped all about them, and they were soft and fleecy as her own had been. Oh! If she had but one to keep out this deathly chill. She screamed out again in an agony of torture, begging that just one blanket might be thrown down to her. But a mocking voice only came back to her, and it said, "Stop up the chinks, and I think you'll be comfortable."
In shivering terror she awoke, relieved beyond measure to find herself at home in her own bed, and then there flashed over her mind the story of Goody Blake and Harry Gill.
Had the Widow Barnes been praying that she might never be warm again? And must she go through life with her teeth chattering as they were now? Mingling confusedly with the words of the old ballad, "Chatter, chatter, chatter still," came a rush of Scripture texts, vivid and startling as if a voice spoke them in her ears, and they were all about the poor.
She was so thoroughly stiffened by cold and fear that she could scarcely rise and go to the closet for the needed covering which on this night she had forgotten to place by her bedside.