"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