Little Alice's Palace; or, The Sunny Heart

								

Alice sat down on the grassy bank, and Lolly laid her head upon her
friend's lap, while Maddie crowded close to her to listen.
"I don't know that I can remember it very well," said Alice; "but I'll
tell it as nearly as I can like Miss Mason.  She called it 'The Little
Exiled Princess,' and this is it."

CHAPTER III.

Once upon a time there was a little girl no bigger than Lolly here,
sitting in the dirt by the roadside, crying.
Her frock was all ragged and soiled, and the tears had run over the dust
upon her face, making it streaked, and disfiguring it sadly.
Altogether, she was a very miserable little object, when a lady, walking
along the road, suddenly came upon her, and stopped to see what was the
matter.
As the lady gazed upon the strange, ragged little creature, there came
tears into her eyes, and she said softly, as if speaking to herself,--
"Who would think that this is the daughter of a great King?"
The child, seeing a beautiful lady before her, jumped from the ground,
and, with shame, began to shake herself from the dirt that clung to her
garments; but the stranger, taking no notice of her untidy condition,
clasped the child's fingers in her white hand, and told her to lead her
to her home.
It was a brown cottage, very like mine, only that one was hung with
cobwebs, and the dust was an inch thick upon the floor, and the window
was so begrimmed that scarcely any light came through.
"Ugh!" said the lady, as she stood upon the threshold and looked in.
"Bring me a broom!"  And she brushed away the hanging webs, and made the
floor neat and clean, and taught the child to wash the window, until the
bright sun came in and played about the floor and upon the walls; and
then she made the little girl wash her face and hands, and put on a
better frock, that she found in the chest.
"Now, my little princess," said she, "come outside for a while, in the
fresh air, and I will talk to you."
"Why do you call me 'little princess'?" asked the child, as they sat down
upon the cottage-step, while the birds twittered about them and the sweet
breath of summer touched their cheeks.
"Because you are the daughter of a great King," said the lady, gently
stroking her soft, brown hair, that she had found so tangled and shaggy,
but had made so nice and smooth.
"My father was a poor man, and he lies in the graveyard," said the little
girl, as she looked wonderingly at her friend.
"Yes; but I mean your heavenly Father," said the lady--"he whom we call
GOD.  Surely you have heard of him, my dear child!"
The little girl said that she had heard of him; but, from what she could
learn, the lady knew that she looked upon him as one that is afar off;
and she wished to teach her how very near he is continually, even round
about her bed and about her path, and spying out all her ways.
"Do you live here all alone, dear child?" asked she kindly.
Her words were so sweet and gentle that they sounded like the murmur of