And so the time went on, slow-paced, with its silent destinies Annie said her prayers, read her Bible, and tried not to forget God.

Ah! could she only have known that God never forgot her, whether she forgot him or not, giving her sleep in her dreary garret, gladness even in Murdoch Malison's school-room, and the light of life everywhere! He was now leading on the blessed season of spring, when the earth would be almost heaven enough to those who had passed through the fierceness of the winter.

Even now, the winter, old and weary, was halting away before the sweet approaches of the spring--a symbol of that eternal spring before whose slow footsteps Death itself, "the winter of our discontent," shall vanish.

Death alone can die everlastingly.
I have been diffuse in my account of Annie's first winter at school, because what impressed her should impress those who read her history.
It is her reflex of circumstance, in a great measure, which makes that history.

In regard to this portion of her life, I have little more to say than that by degrees the school became less irksome to her; that she grew more interested in her work; that some of the reading-books contained extracts which she could enjoy; and that a taste for reading began to wake in her.