the earth was white as far as the eye could see; the snow fell all night too, and when Sophy opened the door in the morning, it lay on the threshold as high as her waist. In the single glimpse of sunshine that flashed forth, how dazzling the earth looked! The fields around, the valleys beneath, the river, the pond, and the hills beyond, all were white.

“How beautiful!” she repeated many times. It was a little troublesome, too, she was willing to acknowledge by the time she had gone backward and forward through it to the spring for water, and to the wood-pile for wood, to last through the day. It was neither pleasant nor easy to do all that she had to do in the snow that morning; but little Sophy had a cheerful heart and a willing mind, and came in rosy and laughing, though a little breathless when all was done. She needed all her courage and cheerfulness, for her mother was quite unable to rise; and whatever was to be done either in the house or out of it, must be done by her to-day.

“I am afraid the storm may prevent the coming of the things your father was to get for us,” said her mother; “and, Sophy dear, you must make the best of the little we have till I am strong again.”

“Oh, mother, never fear; there’s plenty,” said the cheerful little Sophy. “There’s some meal and flour, and some tea and bread, and—that’s all,” she added, coming to a sudden stop. She had not been accustomed of late to a very well-stored pantry, yet even with her limited idea of abundance she was a little startled at the scantiness of the supply.

“There’s no use in vexing mother, though,” said she to herself; “if the things don’t come to-day, they will be sure to come to-morrow. There’s enough till then if we take care.”

It snowed all the morning, but it cleared up a little in the afternoon; that is, there was every now and then a glimpse of sunshine as the hurrying clouds failed to overtake each other in the changing sky. Now and then, before it grew dark, down the shallow ravine where the road lay there came driving clouds of snow—tokens of the mountainous drifts that were to pile themselves up there before the storm should be over.

How the wind raved round the little house all night, threatening, as it seemed to Alice Morely, to tear it down and scatter its fragments far and wide! The first sight the weary little Sophy saw in the morning was her mother’s pale, anxious face looking down upon her.

“How you sleep, child! I have been awake all night, expecting every moment that we should be blown away. It does not seem possible that the house can stand against this dreadful wind much longer.”

“It is much stronger now than when we came, mother dear,” said Sophy; “it must have fallen long ago if the wind could blow it down. Go to bed again, mother, and I will bring your tea and take baby, and you shall rest.”

Mrs Morely had no choice but to lay down again. She was trembling with cold and nervous excitement, quite unable to sit up; and again Sophy was left to the guidance of their affairs, both within and without the house. This was a less easy matter to-day, for the boys were growing weary of being confined to the house, and the little ones were fretful, and it needed all their sister’s skill and patience to keep them amused and happy.

She did her very best. The daily reading of the Testament was lengthened out by questions and little stories, and then they sang the sweet Sabbath-school hymns, which tell the praises of Him who came to save sinners; and who in the greatness of His love died on the cross, that all who believe in Him might have everlasting life. So she kept them quiet while the weary mother sought a little rest: and thus the day wore on.

But all through the reading and the singing and the talk, a vague fear kept crossing the little girl’s mind. What if the things so confidently expected from the village should not come? Their little store of food was diminishing rapidly. What if their father had forgotten them? What if there was nothing awaiting them in the village? Oh, that was too dreadful to be thought of! But if there was food in the village for them, how was it to be brought to them through the drifted snow?

She eagerly watched the window for some sign that the storm was abating. The snow that had seemed so beautiful at first filled her with a vague fear now; it no longer fell softly and silently; the wind bore it by in whirling masses, that hid the river and the pond and the changing sky, and then laid it down in the valleys and on the hill-sides, to lie there, Sophy knew, till April showers and sunshine should come to melt it away. It was vain to look for any one coming with the expected food. Except now and then in a momentary lull of the storm it was quite impossible to see a rod beyond the window, and these glimpses only served to show that they were, on one side at least, quite shut in by a mountainous drift.

Yes, Sophy began to be quite afraid of the snow; tales that she had heard during her summer visits to the mountains came to her mind—how in a single night the valleys would be filled, and how whole flocks of sheep, and sometimes an unwary shepherd, had perished beneath it. She remembered how her grandfather had showed her a cottage where a mother and her children had been quite shut in for two nights and a day, till the neighbours had come to dig them out; and how a lad who had gone out for help before the storm was over had never come home again, but perished on the moor, and how they only found him in the spring time, when the snow melted and showed his dead face turned towards the sky. These things quite appalled her when she thought of venturing out in the storm.

The little store of meal held out wonderfully; the bread was put aside for her mother—hidden, indeed, that no little brother, hungry and adventurous, might find it. That night the storm abated, but towards morning it grew bitterly cold, so cold that the little lads in their thin garments could not venture out to play at making roads in the snow, and they had to submit to another day’s confinement. They went out a little towards afternoon, and came in again merry and hungry, and by no means satisfied with the scanty supper which their sister had prepared for them.