Mary was fourteen when she lost her father.  He was a rough idle good-for-nothing, and one stormy night on his way home from the tavern he went astray and was found dead in the snow.  Her mother had died when she was so small a child that Mary could scarcely remember her face.  So it happened that she was left alone in the world, and all she possessed was a dog, some fowls, and her mother's spinning wheel.