"How lonely and dreary it all looks!" said Amy, with a sigh.

"That is why I like to look at a scene like this," Leonard replied.
"When I get home I see it all again--all its cold desolation--and it
makes Maggie's room, with her and the children around me, seem like
heaven."

But oh, the contrast to Maggie's room that Amy looked upon after a ride
over a wood-road so rough that even the deep snow could not relieve its
rugged inequalities! A dim glow of firelight shone through the frosted
window-panes of a miserable dwelling, as they emerged in the twilight
from the narrow track in the growing timber. In response to a rap on the
door, a gruff, thick voice said, "Come in."

Leonard, with a heavy basket on his arm, entered, followed closely by
Amy, who, in her surprise, looked with undisguised wonder at the scene
before her. Never had she even imagined such a home. Indeed, it seemed
like profanation of the word to call the bare, uncleanly room by that
sweetest of English words. It contained not a home-like feature. Her eyes
were not resting on decent poverty, but upon uncouth, repulsive want; and
this awful impoverishment was not seen in the few articles of cheap,
dilapidated furniture so clearly as in the dull, sodden faces of the man
and woman who kennelled there. No trace of manhood or womanhood was
visible--and no animal is so repulsive as a man or woman imbruted.

The man rose unsteadily to his feet and said: "Evenin', Mr. Clifford.
Will yer take a cheer?"

The woman had not the grace or the power to acknowledge their presence,