“But, oh!  Mammy, if I thought she would ever love me as she does Lewie!  She never kisses me, she never speaks kind to me.  No, Mammy, I do not think she loves me; but how strange it is for a mother not to love her own little girl.”

“Well, darling, we will talk no more of that, or we shall be saying something naughty; we will both try and do our duty, and then God will bless us, and whatever our troubles and trials may be, let us go to Him with them all.  Now, darling, I must leave you.”

“Mammy, will you please bring me my Bible; and my little hymn-book?  I want to learn the”

   ‘I am never alone.’

“God is always by my side, isn’t he Mammy?”

“Yes, love, and he says, ‘I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.’”

When little Agnes was left alone in the great cold room, she walked up and down the floor repeating to herself verses from her Bible and hymn-book.  Sometimes she stopped at the window and looked across the country, towards a wooded hill, where just above the tops of the trees she could see the chimneys of her uncle’s house; and she thought how happy her young cousins were in the love of their father and mother, and she remembered how her own dear papa had loved her, and she thought of the difference now; and the tears flowed afresh.  Then she walked the room again, repeating in a low voice to herself the words: 

    “Never alone; though through deserts I roam
     Where footstep of man has ne’er printed the sand. 
     Never alone; though the ocean’s wild foam
     Rage between me and the loved ones on land. 
     Though hearts that have cherished are laid ’neath the sod,
     Though hearts which should cherish are colder than stone,
     I still have thy love and thy friendship my God,
     Thou always art near me; I’m never alone.”

Soon she grew tired of walking, and seating herself at the table, she laid her head upon her crossed arms and was soon in a sweet slumber, and far away in her dreams from the cold desolate north room, at “the Hemlocks.”

At the end of an hour the youthful widow was disturbed by the sound of merry sleigh-bells, and she had only time to throw her novel hastily aside, when the door opened and her sister-in-law, Mrs. Wharton, entered, accompanied by two of her little girls, their bright faces glowing with health and happiness.

“And how are the children?” Mrs. Wharton asked, after the first salutations were over.

“Why, Lewie does not seem well, he has been complaining for a day or two.”

“And where is Agnes?  We rode over to see if you let her go over and pass the holidays with us.”

“Why, to tell the truth, Agnes has been very naughty, and I have been obliged to shut her up.”

“Again!” exclaimed Mrs. Wharton, while glances of indignation shot from the eyes of her two little girls.  “Agnes naughty, and shut up again!  Why, Harriet, do you know she appears to me so perfectly gentle and lovely, that I can hardly imagine her as doing anything wrong.  Mr. Wharton and I often speak of her as the most faultless child we have ever met with.”