The pinch of poverty was severely felt again that winter in the Caldwell household. Beth, who was growing rapidly, became torpid from excessive self-denial; she tried to do without enough, to make it as if there were one mouth less to feed, and the privation told upon her; her energy flagged; when she went out, she found it difficult to drag herself home, and the exuberant spirit of daring, which found expression in naughty enterprises, suddenly subsided. She poached on principle still for the benefit of the family; but the cool confidence born of a sort of inward certainty, which is a premonition of success, if it is not the power that compels it, was wanting; and it was as if her own doubts when she set the snares released the creatures from the fascination that should have lured them, so that she caught but little. The weather, too, was very severe; every one in the house, including Beth, was more or less ill from colds and coughs, and Aunt Victoria suffered especially; but none of them complained, not even to themselves; they just endured. They felt for each other, however. "Mamma, don't you think Aunt Victoria should have a fire in her room?" Beth said one day. "I do, my dear child," Mrs. Caldwell answered tartly; "but _I_ can't afford the fuel, and she can't afford it either." "I wish I had known that," said Beth. "I wouldn't have let her afford to take me away in the summer, spending all her money for nothing." "What a grateful and gracious child you are!" her mother exclaimed. Beth went frowning from the room. The snow was several feet deep on the ground already, and was still falling heavily. Beth put on her things and stole out, her idea being to gather sticks to make a fire for the old lady; but after a weary trudge she was obliged to return empty-handed, wet, weary, and disheartened. The sticks were deep down under the snow; there were none to be seen. "O God!" Beth prayed as she stumbled home, raising her pinched face to the sombre sky, "O God, save Aunt Victoria all suffering. Don't let her feel the cold, dear Lord, don't let her feel it." Aunt Victoria herself was stoical. She came down to breakfast every morning, and sat up stiffly at the end of the table away from the fire, her usual seat, eating little, and saying little, but listening with interest when the others spoke. Beth watched her, waited on her, and lay awake at night fretting because there was nothing more to be done for her.