“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.”