Alice heard the good curate say that he was going to London on business in a day or two, and her determination was made in a moment.
I said that Alice had kept nothing that she could do without; she had, however, kept the white muslin gown she wore when she was married. She thought she could not give this up. "I shall never wear a white muslin gown again," she said, as she ripped out one of the breadths and made herself two or three plain caps of it.
The next day she rose early before the children were awake, and, standing before a very small looking glass which she had kept to dress her hair, she looked at me curling all over her precious head, and hanging down upon her shoulders.
"He loved these locks," said she, "and, for his sake, I would keep them; but they had better be devoted to the good of our children. Some school books will be worth more than all these golden locks. I am glad the children are asleep, for they love to play with my hair, and it would grieve them to see me cut it off."
The good Alice took her scissors, and cut off lock after lock, till all were gone, save a few which she left around her forehead. Then she put on her simple muslin cap and tied it with a muslin string under her chin.
Just then, her boy awoke. Alice had laid him down on his bed, and the first sight the little fellow saw, when he awoke, was his mother's hair which almost covered him up.
"Why, Mother, how could you do so? How could you cut off your pretty hair, and put on that ugly cap? What would father say? You said we must do what we thought would please him. It would not please him to have you cut off your pretty hair;" and the child burst into an agony of tears.
"Would it not please him that you should have a spelling book and a slate to write on, William? With this hair I can buy them for you. I have no other riches now."
The poor boy still wept. The hair was more to him, at that time, than all learning. He could not then have believed that the time would come, when he would remember with gratitude his mother's sacrifice for him and his little sister.
Alice gathered the locks, took from a drawer her last bit of blue ribbon, and tied them, saying, "This is the way he liked to see my hair tied when I was at my father's cottage. I shall never tie it so again."