Before she reached home the snow was whirling in the frosty air, and the shadows of the brief winter day deepening fast.  With a smile far more pathetic than tears she greeted the children, who were cold, hungry, and frightened at her long absence; and they, children-like, saw only the smile, and not the grief it masked.  They saw also the basket which she had placed on the table, and were quick to note that it seemed a little fuller than of late.

“Jamie,” she said, “run to the store down the street for some coal and kindlings that I bought, and then we will have a good fire and a nice supper;” and the boy, at such a prospect, eagerly obeyed.

She was glad to have him gone, that she might hide her weakness.  She sank into a chair, so white and faint that even little Susie left off peering into the basket, and came to her with a troubled face.

“It’s nothing, dearie,” the poor creature said.  “Mamma’s only a little tired.  See,” she added, tottering to the table, “I have brought you a great piece of gingerbread.”

The hungry child grasped it, and was oblivious and happy.

By the time Jamie returned with his first basket of kindling and coal, the mother had so far rallied from her exhaustion as to meet him smilingly again and help him replenish the dying fire.

“Now you shall rest and have your gingerbread before going for your second load,” she said cheerily; and the boy took what was ambrosia to him, and danced around the room in joyous reaction from the depression of the long weary day, during which, lonely and hungry, he had wondered why his mother did not return.

“So little could make them happy, and yet I cannot seem to obtain even that little,” she sighed.  “I fear—­indeed, I fear—­I cannot be with them another Christmas; therefore they shall remember that I tried to make them happy once more, and the recollection may survive the long sad days before them, and become a part of my memory.”

The room was now growing dark, and she lighted the lamp.  Then she cowered shiveringly over the reviving fire, feeling as if she could never be warm again.

The street-lamps were lighted early on that clouded, stormy evening, and they were a signal to Mr. Jackson, the agent, to leave his office.  He remembered that he had ordered a holiday dinner, and now found himself in a mood to enjoy it.  He had scarcely left his door before a man, coming up the street with great strides and head bent down to the snow-laden blast, brushed roughly against him.  The stranger’s cap was drawn over his eyes, and the raised collar of his blue army overcoat nearly concealed his face.  The man hurriedly begged pardon, and was hastening on when Mr. Jackson’s exclamation of surprise caused him to stop and look at the person he had jostled.

“Why, Mr. Marlow,” the agent began, “I’m glad to see you.  It’s a pleasure I feared I should never have again.”

“My wife,” the man almost gasped, “she’s still in the house I rented of you?”