Jane looked around her--looked at all the terrors of her situation. The first burst of grief over, and a day or two gone on, she could only look at it. She did not know which way to turn or what to do. It is true she placed implicit trust in God--in the LIGHT spoken of by her husband when he was passing away. Throughout her life she had borne an ever-present, lively trust in God's unchanging care; and she had incessantly striven to implant the same trust in the minds of her children. But in this season of dread anxiety, of hopeless bereavement, you will not think less well of her for hearing that she did give way to despondency, almost to despair. From tears for him who had been the dear partner of her life, to anxiety for the future of his children--from anxiety for them, to pecuniary distress and embarrassment--so passed on her hours from Christmas night. Calm she had contrived to be in the presence of others; but it was the calm of an aching heart. She dreaded her own reflections. When she rose in the morning she said, "How shall I bear up through the day?" and when she went to her bed, it would be, "How shall I drag through the right?" Tossing, turning, moaning; walking the room in the darkness when no eye was upon her; kneeling, almost without hope, to pour forth her tribulations to God--who would believe that, in the daytime, before others, she could be so apparently serene? Only once did she give way, and that was the day before the funeral. Patience sympathised with her in a reasoning sort of way. It had been next to impossible for Jane to keep her pecuniary anxiety from Patience, who advised and assisted her in making the various arrangements. It was necessary to go to work in the most sparing manner possible; and it ended in Jane's taking Patience into her full confidence. "If thee can but keep a house over thy head, so as to retain thy children with thee, thee wilt get along. Do not be cast down." "Oh, Patience, that is what I have been thinking about--how am I to keep the house together. I do not see that I can do it." "The furniture is thine," observed Patience. "Thee might let two or three of thy rooms, so as to cover the rent." "I have thought all that over and over again to myself," sighed Jane. "But, Patience--allowing that the rent were made in that way--how are we to live?" "Thee must occupy thy time in some way. Thee can sew! Dost thee know dress-making?" "No--only sufficient of it to make my own plain gowns and Jane's frocks. As to plain sewing, I could never earn food at it--it is so badly paid. And there will be the education of my boys, and their clothing." "Thee hast anxiety before thee--I see it," said Patience, in a grave tone. "Still, I would not have thee be cast down. Thee will make thyself ill, and that will not be the way to mend thy condition."