Margret looked at her, thinking how sallow the plump, fair face had grown, and how faded the kindly blue eyes were now.

Dim with crying,--she knew that, though she never saw her shed a tear.

Always cheery, going placidly about the house in her gray dress and Quaker cap, as if there were no such things in the world as debt or blindness.

But Margret knew, though she said nothing.

When her mother came in from those wonderful foraging expeditions in search of late pease or corn, she could see the swollen circle round the eyes, and hear her breath like that of a child which has sobbed itself tired.
Then, one night, when she had gone into her mother's room, after she was in bed, the blue eyes were set in a wild, hopeless way, as if staring down into years of starvation and misery.