I fed little Katie and put her to bed, made the hot cakes for tea, boiled the potatoes, and laid the ham, cut in nice slices, in the pan, ready to cook the moment I saw the men enter the meadow, and arranged the little room with scrupulous care and neatness.  A glorious fire was blazing on the hearth, and everything was ready for their supper; and I began to look out anxiously for their arrival.

The night had closed in cold and foggy, and I could no longer distinguish any object at more than a few yards from the door.  Bringing in as much wood as I thought would last me for several hours, I closed the door; and for the first time in my life I found myself at night in a house entirely alone.  Then I began to ask myself a thousand torturing questions as to the reason of their unusual absence.  Had they lost their way in the woods?  Could they have fallen in with wolves (one of my early bugbears)?  Could any fatal accident have befallen them?  I started up, opened the door, held my breath, and listened.  The little brook lifted up its voice in loud, hoarse wailing, or mocked, in its babbling to the stones, the sound of human voices.  As it became later, my fears increased in proportion.  I grew too superstitious and nervous to keep the door open.  I not only closed it, but dragged a heavy box in front, for bolt there was none.  Several ill-looking men had, during the day, asked their way to Toronto.  I felt alarmed, lest such rude wayfarers should come to-night and demand a lodging, and find me alone and unprotected.  Once I thought of running across to Mrs. Joe, and asking her to let one of the girls stay with me until Moodie returned; but the way in which I had been repulsed in the evening prevented me from making a second appeal to their charity.

Hour after hour wore away, and the crowing of the cocks proclaimed midnight, and yet they came not.  I had burnt out all my wood, and I dared not open the door to fetch in more.  The candle was expiring in the socket, and I had not courage to go up into the loft and procure another before it went finally out.  Cold, heart-weary, and faint, I sat and cried.  Every now and then the furious barking of the dogs at the neighbouring farms, and the loud cackling of the geese upon our own, made me hope that they were coming; and then I listened till the beating of my own heart excluded all other sounds.  Oh, that unwearied brook! how it sobbed and moaned like a fretful child;—­what unreal terrors and fanciful illusions my too active mind conjured up, whilst listening to its mysterious tones!

Just as the moon rose, the howling of a pack of wolves, from the great swamp in our rear, filled the whole air.  Their yells were answered by the barking of all the dogs in the vicinity, and the geese, unwilling to be behind-hand in the general confusion, set up the most discordant screams.  I had often heard, and even been amused, during the winter, particularly on thaw nights, with hearing the howls of these formidable