Alice and Beatrice

								

‘Now, Alice, look for the two great capital cities of Russia. The old
capital is called Moscow, and the new one is called St. Petersburg.’
Alice looked carefully at her map, and when grandmamma had told her that
St. Petersburg lies high up in the north and Moscow much lower to the
east, Alice found both places.
‘Please show me, grandmamma, where you lived.’
‘Here,’ said grandmamma, ‘on the shores of the Gulf of Finland, where
the sea freezes in winter.’

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CHAPTER V.



               CELLAR—WALK TO THE SEA-SHORE—RAINBOW, ETC.

THE next morning it rained again, and the little girls could not go out;
but they were not unhappy, because they knew that grandmamma would tell
them some stories, or give them something to amuse them.
After their lessons, grandmamma said, ‘Alice and Beatrice, I am going
down into the cellar, will you come with me?’
‘Yes, please, please,’ cried both the little girls; ‘we shall like to
come with you so much; we have never seen the cellar.’
‘Is it quite dark, grandmamma?’ asked Beatrice.
‘Yes, to be sure,’ said Alice; ‘but Mary has a candle, and will show us
light.’
Mary walked on in front, and went slowly down a long, dark, narrow
staircase. Alice ran after her, and Beatrice, holding grandmamma’s hand,
followed carefully.
The little girls looked about in wonder; they did not know what a large
place the cellar was. There were several rooms, all called cellars,
which Mary showed them. First, to the right hand, without a door, was a
very large and black-looking place, and when Mary lighted it up, the
children saw that it was full of coals.
‘That is our coal cellar, miss,’ said Mary; ‘and this,’ opening a door,
‘is for the beer and cider.’
The children looked in, and saw several tubs of beer and cider placed
side by side. Then grandmamma unlocked another door, and that was the
wine cellar. They all went in; it was much cleaner and drier than the
other cellars, and all the bottles were arranged neatly: and just when
the children were going to ask some questions, grandmamma remembered
that Mary had forgotten to bring down a bottle of wine to exchange for
another bottle; so Mary went back with the candle, and Alice and
Beatrice were left in the dark cellar with their grandmamma.
At first the two children were quite silent, till Beatrice, who held
grandmamma’s hand, said, ‘Grandmamma, can God see us everywhere?’
‘Yes, Beatrice; everywhere and always.’
‘Can God see us in this dark cellar?’
‘Yes, dear children. God sees in the dark as in the light; by night and
by day: God sees everybody and everything. In the Psalms[1] you will
read, “He who planted the ear, shall he not hear? or he who made the
eye, shall he not see?” which means that God who made our ears must be