Little Alice's Palace; or, The Sunny Heart

								

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