"Perhaps God can speak to her because she is so simple," said one of
the household with whom words were few.

They looked at each other as though a ray of sunlight had flashed
through their dwelling. Something akin to hope began to spring in their
hearts, but died away as the chilling blasts came moaning around them.

Three days passed, while the storm raged and threatened to bury their
home beneath the heavy snows. There was no food now to share between
them. The last crumb had been given the child to soften her cries of
hunger.

"I can stand this no longer," said the eldest, wrapping his garments
around him, and preparing to go forth to find labor and bread for his
brothers and sisters. "Ah, that I should ever have lived to see this
day!"--he murmured--"the day in which we are deserted and forgotten
by our father."

The sound of murmuring within now mingled with the sighing of the winds
without. He stepped to the door; but for an instant the fierce blasts
drove him back--yet but for an instant. "I will not add cowardice to
sorrow," he said to them, in reply to their entreaties not to go in the
storm. With one strong effort he faced the chilling sleet, which so
blinded him that he could not find the path which led to the highway;
yet he went bravely on, till hunger and chill overcame him, and he could
no longer see or even feel. He grew strangely dizzy, and would have
fallen to the ground, but for a pair of strong arms which at that instant
held him fast. He was too much overcome to know who it was that thus
enfolded him; but soon a well-known voice rose above the wind and the
storm,--he knew that his father's arms were about him, and he feared