And this I say was the smallest thing; for it was far more serious that we were losing half our stock, do all we would to shelter them.  Even the horses in the stables (mustered all together for the sake of breath and steaming) had long icicles from their muzzles, almost every morning.  But of all things the very gravest, to my apprehension, was the impossibility of hearing, or having any token of or from my loved one.  Not that those three days alone of snow (tremendous as it was) could have blocked the country so; but that the sky had never ceased, for more than two days at a time, for full three weeks thereafter, to pour fresh piles of fleecy mantle; neither had the wind relaxed a single day from shaking them.  As a rule, it snowed all day, cleared up at night, and froze intensely, with the stars as bright as jewels, earth spread out in lustrous twilight, and the sounds in the air as sharp and crackling as artillery; then in the morning, snow again; before the sun could come to help.

It mattered not what way the wind was.  Often and often the vanes went round, and we hoped for change of weather; the only change was that it seemed (if possible) to grow colder.  Indeed, after a week or so, the wind would regularly box the compass (as the sailors call it) in the course of every day, following where the sun should be, as if to make a mock of him.  And this of course immensely added to the peril of the drifts; because they shifted every day; and no skill or care might learn them.

I believe it was on Epiphany morning, or somewhere about that period, when Lizzie ran into the kitchen to me, where I was thawing my goose-grease, with the dogs among the ashes—­the live dogs, I mean, not the iron ones, for them we had given up long ago,—­and having caught me, by way of wonder (for generally I was out shoveling long before my “young lady” had her nightcap off), she positively kissed me, for the sake of warming her lips perhaps, or because she had something proud to say.

“You great fool, John,” said my lady, as Annie and I used to call her, on account of her airs and graces; “what a pity you never read, John!”

“Much use, I should think, in reading!” I answered, though pleased with her condescension; “read, I suppose, with roof coming in, and only this chimney left sticking out of the snow!”

“The very time to read, John,” said Lizzie, looking grander; “our worst troubles are the need, whence knowledge can deliver us.”

“Amen,” I cried out; “are you parson or clerk?  Whichever you are, good-morning.”

Thereupon I was bent on my usual round (a very small one nowadays), but Eliza took me with both hands, and I stopped of course; for I could not bear to shake the child, even in play, for a moment, because her back was tender.  Then she looked up at me with her beautiful eyes, so large, unhealthy and delicate, and strangely shadowing outward, as if to spread their meaning; and she said,—­