"Sometimes I read from the Psalms, or from the Gospel of John, which mother dearly loved; and though she did not take much notice, but lay in a stupor most of the time, the holy words were comfort and company to me. At other times I sat in mute grief, watching her painful breathing, and the gradual pinching and sharpening of her features as the relentless disease worked upon them. O, it was hard! I don't think many lives know so much and such utter misery. In my anxiety and grief, and the mental bewilderment resulting from loss of sleep, I forgot to reckon the days as they passed. "But one day, as I sat by mother's pillow, my mind full of the dread that seemed now as if it might any moment be realized,--of the awfulness of being left alone in that living tomb with the marble image of what was and yet was not my mother, the clock struck nine in the morning. Somewhere the sun was shining, I thought. Somewhere there were happy lovers, merry-makings in divers places, wedding-bells ringing. "A faint sound disturbed my revery. I started up and listened intently; but the noise did not recur, and I dropped my head again, thinking my fancy had cheated me. "I don't know why it was that what failed to reach my strained ear found its way to mother's; but all at once, from having been in a stupid state from which I could hardly rouse her, she opened her eyes, and said, 'What is that?' "'Do you hear anything?' I asked, trembling. But before she could answer, I too heard a shout. "Help was at hand! And mother might yet be saved! "I burst into tears, and Jem and David set up a loud cry for company. Those outside heard it, for the next instant there was a great halloo. They were cutting their way through the drift,--they came every minute nearer and nearer. Pretty soon I heard a voice that set my heart beating and made me sob again. It was Ephraim's. "'Are you all alive?' he cried. "'We are all alive, but mother is very sick.' "I don't know how long it took to tunnel that huge snow-drift. I sat holding mother's hand till there was a noise at the door. I sprang up then, and the next instant stood face to face with Ephraim. And we did not meet as we had parted. "I was glad to think that we owed our deliverance to him. He had roused up the neighbors, and they came over that trackless waste on snow-shoes. On snow-shoes Ephraim went for the doctor, and mother began to mend from the time of his coming. "It was a week before father got home. Yet he had come as fast as the roads would let him, travelling night and day in his eagerness to reach us. He told us of houses snowed up, and people and animals perishing miserably. And by God's grace we were saved, even to the cows, which in their hunger had broken loose from their stalls, and eaten the hay from the mow. "And so my life's greatest joy and pain came to me by the storm. It gave Ephraim back to me. For forty years as man and wife we had never a hard word.