--Eight and six and then eight.
Growing confused, she said to herself--"Anyway it is far, and the roads will be heavy." Again she felt affrighted at their loneliness, which once hardly gave her a thought.

All was well enough when people were in health and merry, and one had no need of help; but with trouble or sickness the woods around seemed to shut them cruelly away from all succour--the woods where horses sink to the chest in snow, where storms smother one in mid-April.
The mother strove to turn in her sleep, waked with a cry of anguish, and the continual moaning began anew.

Maria rose and sat by the bed, thinking of the long day just beginning in which she would have neither help nor counsel.
All the dragging hours were burdened with lamentable sound; the groaning from the bed where the sick woman lay never ceased, and haunted the narrow wooden dwelling.

Now and then some household noise broke in upon it: the clashing of plates, the clang of the opened stove door, the sound of feet on the planking, Tit'Be stealing into the house, clumsy and anxious, to ask for news.
"Is she no better ?" Maria answered by a movement of the head.

They both stood gazing for a time at the motionless figure under the woollen blankets, giving ear to the sounds of distress; then Tit'Be departed to his small outdoor duties.