“Not in her room!” and the girl looked quickly up.
“No, not in her room,—he spared her that; and when she first began to rock and sing, he tried his best to quiet her, but he couldn’t. She was worse than usual.”
“Oh, how dreadful our life is?” Alice said again, while a shiver as if she were cold ran over her. “I used to envy the girls at school who were looking forward with such delight to their vacations, when I had nothing but this for my portion. It is better than I deserve, I know, and it is wrong for me to murmur; but, auntie, nobody can ever envy me my home!”
Her white fingers were pressed to her eyes, and the tears were streaming through them, as she sat there weeping so bitterly, the fair young girl whom Magdalen Lennox had envied for her beauty, her muslin dress, her mother, her home! Alas! Magdalen, playing, and working, and eating, and living in the great kitchen at Millbank, had known more of genuine home happiness in a month than poor Alice Grey had known in her whole life. And yet Alice’s home presented to the eye a most beautiful and desirable aspect. There were soft velvet carpets on all the floors, mirrors and curtains of costly lace in all the rooms, with pictures, and books, and shells, and rare ornaments from foreign lands; handsome grounds, with winding walks and terraced banks and patches of flowers, and fountains, and trees, and rustic seats, and vine-wreathed arbors, and shady nooks, suggestive of quiet, delicious repose; horses and carriages, and plenty of servants at command. This was Alice’s home, and it stood upon the mountain side, overlooking the valley of the Hudson, which could be seen at intervals winding its way to the sea.
An old Scotch servant, who had been in the family for years, came into the library where Alice was sitting, and after warmly welcoming her bonny mistress, told her tea was waiting in the little supper room, where the table was laid with the prettiest of tea-cloths, and the solid silver contrasted so brightly with the pure white china. There were luscious strawberries, fresh from the vines, and sweet, thick cream from Hannah’s milk-house, and the nice hot tea-cakes which Alice loved, and her glass of water from her favorite spring under the rock, and Lucy stood and waited on her with as much deference as if she had been a queen.
Alice was very tired, and soon after tea was over she asked permission to retire, and Nannie, her own waiting-maid, went with her up the broad staircase and through the upper hall to her room, which was over the library, and had, like that, a bay-window looking off into the distant valley.
Nannie was all attention, but Alice did not want her that night. She would rather be alone; and she dismissed the girl, saying to her with a smile, “I had no good Nannie at school to undress me and put up my things. We had to wait on ourselves; so you see I have become quite a little woman, and shall often dispense with your services.”
With her door shut on Nannie, Alice went straight to her window, through which the moonlight was streaming, and kneeling down with her head upon the sill, she prayed earnestly for grace to bear the loneliness and desolation weighing so heavily on her spirits.
Although a child in years, Alice Grey had long since learned at whose feet to lay her burdens. Her religion was a part of her whole being, and she made it very beautiful with her loving, consistent life. Her school companions had dubbed her the little “Puritan,” and sometimes laughed at her for what they called her straight-laced notions; but there was not one of them who did not love the gentle Alice Grey, or who would not have trusted her implicitly, and stood by her against the entire school.
Alice knew that she was apt to murmur too much at the darkness overshadowing her home, and to forget the many blessings which crowned her life, and she now asked forgiveness for it, and prayed for a spirit of thankfulness for all the good Heaven had bestowed upon her. And then she asked that, if possible, the shadow might be lifted from the life of one who was at once a terror and an object of her deepest solicitude and love.