It snowed heavily all day.  Lydia had put in the morning as usual cleaning the house.  This was a very methodical and thorough process now, and when it was finished the cottage shone with cleanliness.  In the afternoon, she dug a path to the gate, played a game of tag in the snow with Adam, then, rosy and tired, established herself in Amos’ arm chair with a book.  Lizzie was taking a long nap.  The dear old soul had been exhausted by the nursing.  Levine lay on the couch and finally asked Lydia to read aloud to him.  She was deep in “The Old Curiosity Shop” and was glad to share it with her friend.

During the remainder of the afternoon John watched the snowflakes or Lydia’s sensitive little red face and listened to the immortal story.

Suddenly he was astonished to hear Lydia’s voice tremble.  She was reading of little Nell’s last sickness.  “She was dead.  Dear, patient, noble Nell was dead.  No sleep so beautiful and calm.  She seemed a creature fresh from the hand of God.  Not one who had lived and suffered death.”

Lydia suddenly broke off, bowed her yellow head on the book and broke into deep, long drawn sobs that were more like a woman’s than a child’s.

John rose as quickly as he could.  “My dearest!” he exclaimed.  “What’s the matter?” He pulled her from the arm chair, seated himself, then drew her to his knees.

“I can’t bear it!” sobbed Lydia.  “I can’t.  Seems sometimes if I couldn’t have little Patience again I’d die!  That’s the way she looked in her coffin, you remember?  ’F-fresh from the hand of God—­not one who h-had lived and s-suffered death.’  O my little, little sister!”

John took “The Old Curiosity Shop” from the trembling fingers and flung it upon the couch.  Then he gathered Lydia in his arms and hushed her against his heart.

“Sweetheart!  Sweetheart!  Why, I didn’t realize you still felt so!  Think how happy Patience must be up there with God and her mother!  You wouldn’t wish her back!”

“If I believed that I could stand it—­but there isn’t any God!”

Levine gasped.  “Lydia!  Hush now!  Stop crying and tell me about it.”

He rocked slowly back and forth, patting her back and crooning to her until the sobs stopped.

“There!” he said.  “And what makes you think there’s no God, dear?”

“If there was a God, He’d answer prayers.  Or He’d give some sign.”  Lydia lifted a tear-stained face from John’s shoulder.  “He’s never paid any attention to me,” she said tensely.  “I’ve tried every way to make Him hear.  Sometimes in the dusk, I’ve taken Adam and we’ve gone deep into the woods and I’ve sat and thought about Him till—­till there was nothing else in the world but my thought of Him.  And I never got a sign.  And I’ve floated on my back in the lake looking up into the sky trying to make myself believe He was there—­and I couldn’t.  All I knew was that Mother and Patience were dead and in coffins in the ground.”