Then came the mother’s habitual recollection of her children.  They must not bear the weight of this great sorrow in the days of their tender youth, lest the hopefulness and energy they would certainly need in after life should be discouraged and disheartened out of them.  Edward is naturally too reflective; he dwells too much on his loss, and evidently begins to ponder already how so many children are to be taken care of without a father.  Sensitive Mary feels too deeply the shadow of the cloud which has come over her home; her face reflects back her mother’s sadness.

So, rising, the mother rang the bell, and gave directions that the children should be prepared for a visit to their grandfather’s, and that the sleigh should be brought to the door.

“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 they went, down the hill and out of sight.