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Little Alice's Palace / or, The Sunny Heart
CHAPTER I
The rain was pattering, pattering steadily upon the roof of a little brown cottage that stood alone by the country roadside.
There had been a long and dreary winter, and now the bright spring was coming, with its buds and leaves and flowers, to gladden the earth, that had all the time seemed to be dead.
As the shower came down, the little green blades of grass sprang up to catch the drops; and they seemed almost to laugh and sing, so full of joy were they when they could lift their heads from the dust.
It was so much sweeter to be out once more from their prison-house and to exult with all God’s fair creation; so they bathed themselves in the falling shower, and made themselves fresh and clean; and nobody would ever have believed that they came out from their dark beds in the earth.
Little Alice looked out of the windows of the brown cottage, and saw them nodding gaily to her as they were taking their bath; and so she smiled back again, and talked to them from her perch in the window-seat as if they were brothers and sisters, with eyes and ears to see and hear, and hearts to return her love. Indeed, there was no one else to whom she could talk the livelong day. No father, for he was dead; no living brothers and sisters; no mother at home, for they were very poor, and her mother must be gone at early dawn to labour for their food and clothing and shelter;—and so Alice had to make companions of the blades of grass that nodded at her through the drops.
“Oh, you beauties!” said she gladly; “and I know who made you, too, and what a great, good God he is to send you here—bright little creatures that you are. How pleasant it will be down by the brook-side when the sun comes out, and you and I and the blue violets and the dandelions have our visiting-time together! Never a little girl had such joy as I have!” And Alice put her face close to the pane, and looked up into the sky to thank her kind heavenly Father for sending her such blessings. It seemed as if she could see him bending graciously down towards her, as her Sunday-school teacher had often represented him to her; and then she thought of Him who was upon the earth, and who took up little children in his arms and blessed them; and she put out her hands towards the heavens, saying earnestly, “Me, too, dear Saviour: bless me too!”
So absorbed was she that she didn’t hear anybody enter the room until a timid voice said,—
“Who were you speaking to, Alice?”
There was such a woful figure by the door as she turned her head—no bonnet, no shoes, and a tattered frock, all draggled with dirt and rain, and the long, uncombed locks straggling about the child’s shoulders, and such a blue, pinched look in the thin face!
“Oh, it’s you, Maddie, is it?” said Alice, jumping from the window and taking the hand of the new-comer. “But it was a pity to get so wet. I’m glad you’ve come. We’ll keep house together till it clears away, and then maybe we’ll have a nice walk. First we must dry your clothes, though.” And she put some sticks in the fireplace, and putting a match to them, stationed Maddie before the blaze, while she held the skirt out to dry.
“Isn’t it pleasant here?” asked Alice, with a beaming smile.
Maddie looked around, with a half shrug, upon the cheerless room, with its bit of a table and the one chair and the low, curtainless window, and then her eyes fell upon the scantily-clad little girl by her side; and then she shivered, as the dampness of her clothes sent a creeping chill through her frame; but she didn’t say it was pleasant.
“Aren’t you afraid to stay here so much alone, Alice?” she asked, giving another glance about the room.
“But I never stay alone, Maddie!” answered the dear child. “I have plenty of company—‘Tabby,’ and the flies, and now and then a spider, and everything that goes by the door, and the clouds and the sunshine and the leaves and the—oh dear! so many things, Maddie, that I can’t begin to tell you.” And she stopped short for want of breath.
“And somebody you were talking to. Who was that?” asked Maddie.
“Ah, yes, best of all! Don’t you know, Maddie?” said Alice, sinking her voice to a whisper, and gazing earnestly at her young companion. “Miss Mason told me how He is everywhere, and sees and hears us, and that he loves us better than our mother or father can do, and watches over us and keeps us from all harm. If you go to the school with me you’ll learn all about it, Maddie dear. No, no; I’m never alone though mother is gone all the long day.”
“Do you see Him, Alice?” asked Maddie earnestly.
“Not as I see you, Maddie,” returned her companion with reverence; “but when I look up into the sky, and sometimes when I sit here by myself and speak things that I have learned from my Bible, I seem to feel some strange brightness all above and around me; and it’s so real to me that it’s just like seeing with these eyes. Miss Mason says ‘it’s my soul that sees.’ Whatever it is, it’s very beautiful, Maddie.” And Alice clasped her hands in a sort of ecstasy, and drew near to the window to look up once more into the heavens, whither her eyes and her heart so continually turned.
CHAPTER II
The shower did not last long, and the warm sun melted the diamonds from the grass, so that it was soon fit for the little girls to go out into the freshness and enjoy the pleasant air.
“Don’t you think this a pretty cottage?” asked Alice, as they stepped outside and stood looking upon her home. “See the moss all over the shingles; how velvety it is! Tabby goes up there to sleep on the soft cushion in the sun. And here’s where I put my convolvuluses, and they climb up and run all over the window and make such a nice curtain, with the pink and blue and white and purple mixed with the green; and they reach up to the very chimney, Maddie, and hug it round, and then trail down upon the roof. Oh, I think it’s elegant! And here’s my flower-bed, right under the window, where mother can smell the blossoms as we sit sewing when she has a day at home. We take real comfort here, mother and I, Maddie.” And so the little blithesome child prattled about her humble home, while her companion looked in astonishment upon her, wondering why it was that Alice always seemed so happy, while she was so miserable.
“We’ll go down by the brook-side now,” said Alice. “There’s my grand palace. Such hangings! all blue and gold and crimson; and carpets that your feet sink into; and a great mirror, such as the richest man couldn’t buy. Don’t you know what I mean, Maddie?” And Alice laughed gleefully as they reached the brook-side, and pointed to the heavens above, so brilliant in the sunny radiance, and down to the green and flowery turf beneath their feet, and to the clear stream that reflected all things, like the purest glass. And she said, “Now, don’t you like my palace, Maddie?”
“Yes, it’s very pretty here,” said Maddie; but she didn’t seem to feel about it as Alice did, who was in such good spirits that she could keep neither her feet nor her tongue still, but frisked about the green like a young deer, and chattered like a magpie, only in far sweeter tones.
“This is my bower,” said she, lifting up the drooping branches of a willow and shutting herself and Maddie within. “Here I come for a nap when I am tired of play; and the leaves rustle in the wind, making a pleasant sound, and the birds sit on the boughs and sing me asleep, and I dream always happy dreams. When awake, I think about the pure river that my Bible speaks of, and the tree of life that is on either side, and the beautiful light that isn’t like the sun, nor the moon, nor the blaze of a candle, but comes from the face of God, and is never hidden from us to leave us in darkness.”
Maddie sat down upon a large stone that Alice called her throne, and looked eagerly up at her companion for more; for Alice’s words seemed to her like some beautiful story out of a book.
“Did you ever go into any great house, Maddie?” asked Alice.
“No, never,” said Maddie. “I passed by Mrs. Cowper’s one day, and looked in at the open door when somebody was coming out, but I couldn’t see much.”
“That’s just where I went with mother,” said Alice; “and little Mary took me into a high room, the walls all velvet and satin and gold, so that my eyes ached for looking; and there