So, rising, the mother rang the bell, and gave directions that the children should be prepared for a visit to their grandfather's, and that the sleigh should be brought to the door.
"They must go," thought she, "I cannot bear them about me. I must spend this day alone;" and she bade Mary replenish the fire, and seated herself in the arm-chair by the window. What a sickness fell upon the sad heart as the eye roved over the cheerful winter landscape! Here were the hurryings to and fro of congratulation, the gay garments, such as she and hers had laid aside, the merry chiming of the many-toned sleigh-bells, all so familiar to her ear that she knew who was passing, even if she had not looked up. Here is Thomas with the sleigh for the children, and, preceding it, is Ponto in his highest glee—now he dashes forward with a few quick bounds, and turns to bark a challenge at Thomas and the horses—now he plunges into a snow-drift, and mining his way through it, emerges on the other side to shake himself vigorously and bark again.
Has Ponto forgotten his master? Ponto, who lies so often at his mistress's feet, and looks up wistfully into her face, as if he understood much, but would like to ask more, and seems, with his low whine, to put the question—Why, when his master went away so many months ago, he had never come back again:—Ponto, who would lie for hours, when he could steal an access to them, beside the trunks which came home unaccompanied by their owner, and which still stood in a closed room, which was to the household like the silent chamber of death. There had been for the mourner a soothing power in Ponto's dumb sympathy, even when, with the caprice of suffering, she could not bear the obtrusiveness of human pity.
Out trooped the merry, noisy children, well equipped with caps and comforters. Good Thomas arranged them on the seats, and wrapped the buffalo-robes about them, and encircling his special darling, a prattling little girl of three years old, with his careful arm, away they went, down the hill and out of sight.
With a sigh of relief, the mother drew her chair to the hearth, and resolved, for that one day, to give over the struggle, and let sorrow have its way. She dwelt on all the circumstances of the change, which so suddenly had darkened her life. She permitted her thoughts to run upon themes from which she had sedulously kept them, thus indulging, and as it were, nursing her grief. She recalled the thoughtful love which had been hers till it seemed as natural and as necessary to her as the air she breathed. She had been an indulged wife, constantly cared for, and lavishly supplied with everything that heart could wish. The natural sensitiveness of her temperament had been heightened by too much tenderness; she had been encouraged to cling like a vine, and to expect support from without herself. She was still young and beautiful. She was accustomed to be loved and admired by many, but that was nothing to her in comparison with the calm unvarying estimation in which she had been held by one faithful heart. How was she to live without this essential element of her life?
Then the darkened future of her life rushed over her like an overwhelming flood: the cares and duties which were henceforward to devolve on her alone; the children who were never to know any other parent but herself; never to know any stronger restraints from evil or incentives to good than she in her feebleness could exert over them. What would become of her boys as they grew older, and needed a father's wise counsels? She saw with grief that she was even less qualified than most mothers to exercise the sole government and providence over a family. She had been too much indulged—too entirely screened from contact with the world's rough ways.
How were the wants of her large family to be provided for with the lessened income she could now command? Pecuniary loss had followed close upon her great bereavement, and though this constituted but a small element in her sorrow, yet now that it came before her on the morning of this new year, it added yet another shade to the "horror of great darkness" which encompassed her. She knew that it must have a direct bearing upon her welfare, and that of her family.
Then she reverted to the New Year's Day of last year; the little surprises she had helped to plan; the liberal expenditure by which she had sent pleasure, for one day at least, into the dwellings of the poor, her generous gifts to her servants, which it had been a pleasant study to adapt to their several tastes and wants; the dependencies, near and remote, which she had used as channels for conveying a measure of happiness to many a heart. Now there must be an end to all this; she could be generous no more. Even her children, partly from her pre-occupied mind, had no gifts provided for them to-day. Was she not a "widow and desolate?"
"Desolate, desolate!" she repeated in bitterness of soul. She paused. A voice within her seemed to say—"Now she that is a widow and desolate trusteth in God." A moment after there came into her mind yet another verso, "And none of them that trust in Him shall be DESOLATE."
Could it be that she remembered the passage aright? Her Bible lay open on the table before her. She had that morning earnestly sought strength from it, and from communion with God before she could nerve herself to meet her children, and bear their reiterated salutations, heart-rending to her, "Happy New Year, mother"—"Mother, dear mother, I wish you a Happy New Year."