She could hear those merry laughs, those feminine tones, and the pattering of gaitered feet up the stairs.

She could hear the deeper voices of the gentlemen, as they stamped and shook the snow off their hats and great-coats in the hall.

She listened and looked out again at the wintry twilight.
"Oh!" she thought, with weary sadness, "what happy people there are in the world! Women who love and are beloved, who have everything their hearts desire--home, and friends, and youth, and hope, and happiness.
Women who scarcely know, even by hearsay, of such wretched castaways as I." She walked from the window to the fire, and, leaning against the mantel, fixed her eyes on the flickering flame.
"My birthday," she said to herself, "this long, lonesome, desolate day.
Desolate as my lost life, as my dead heart.

Only two-and twenty, and all that makes life worth having, gone already." Again she walked to the window.

Far away, and pale and dim through the drifting snow, she could see the low-lying sky.
"Not all!" was the better thought that came to her in her bitterness--"not all, but oh! how far away the land of rest looks!" She leaned against the window, as she had leaned against the mantel, and took from her bosom the locket she always wore.
"This day twelvemonth he gave me this--his birthday gift.