Alice had little education beyond what life had given her; but life is the truest of all teachers, however little the results of her teaching may be valued by school-enthusiasts. She did not put the letter H in its place except occasionally, but she knew how to send a selfish thought back to its place. She did not know one creed from another, but she loved what she saw to be good. She knew nothing of the Norman conquest, but she knew much of self-conquest. She could make her breakfast off dry bread, that her mother might have hot coffee and the best of butter. She wore very shabby frocks, but she would not put bad work into the seams of a rich lady's dress. She stooped as she walked, and there was a lack of accord between her big beautiful eyes and the way she put her feet down; but it was the same thing that made her eyes so large, and her feet so heavy; and if she could not trip lightly along the street, she could lay very tender hands on her mother's head when it ached with drinking. She had suffered much at the hands of great ladies, yet she had but to see Barbara to love her.
As she lay with her heart warming in that sunshine in which every heart must one day flash like the truest of diamonds, she heard the sound of a horse's hoofs on the road. Her angel came to Alice with no flapping of great wings, or lighting of soft-poised heavenly feet on wooden floor, but with the sounds of ringing iron shoes and snorting breath, to be followed by a girl's feet on the stair, whose herald was the smell, now of rosiest roses, now of whitest lilies, in the chamber of her sad sister. Well might Alice have sung, “How beautiful are the feet!” At the music of those mounting feet, death and fear slunk from the room, and Alice knew there was salvation in the world. What evil can there be for which there is no help in another honest human soul! What sorrow is there from which a man may not be some covert, some shadow! Alas for the true soul which cannot itself save, when it has no notion where help is to be found!
“Well, how are you to-day, little one?” said Barbara, sitting down on the edge of the bed.
Alice was older and taller than Barbara, but Barbara never thought about height or age: strong herself, she took the maternal relation to all weakness.
“Ever so much better, miss!” answered Alice.
“Now, none of that!” returned the little lady, “or I walk out of the room! My name is Barbara, and we are friends—except you think it cheeky of me to call you Alice!”
Alice stretched out her thin arms, folded them gently around Barbara, and burst into weeping, which was not all bitter.
“Will you let me tell you everything?” she cried.
“What am I here for?” returned Barbara, deep in her embrace. “Only don't think I'm asking you to tell me anything. Tell me whatever you like—whatever will help me to know you—not a thing more.”
Alice lay silent for an instant, then said—