The rain was pattering, pattering steadily upon the roof of a little brown cottage that stood alone by the country roadside. There had been a long and dreary winter, and now the bright spring was coming, with its buds and leaves and flowers, to gladden the earth, that had all the time seemed to be dead. As the shower came down, the little green blades of grass sprang up to catch the drops; and they seemed It was so much sweeter to be out once more from their prison-house and to exult with all God’s fair creation; so they bathed themselves in the falling shower, and made themselves fresh and clean; and nobody would ever have believed that they came out from their dark beds in the earth. Little Alice looked out of the windows of the brown cottage, and saw them nodding gaily to her as they were taking their bath; and so she smiled back again, and talked to them from her perch in the window-seat as if they were brothers and sisters, with eyes and ears to see and hear, and hearts to return her love. Indeed, there was no one else to whom she could talk the livelong day. No father, for he was dead; no living “Oh, you beauties!” said she gladly; “and I know who made you, too, and what a great, good God he is to send you here—bright little creatures that you are. How pleasant it will be down by the brook-side when the sun comes out, and you and I and the blue violets and the dandelions have our visiting-time together! Never a little girl had such joy as I have!” And Alice put her face close to the pane, and looked up into the sky to thank her kind heavenly Father for sending her such blessings. It seemed as if she could see him bending So absorbed was she that she didn’t hear anybody enter the room until a timid voice said,— “Who were you speaking to, Alice?” There was such a woful figure by the door as she turned her head—no bonnet, no shoes, and a tattered frock, all draggled with dirt and rain, and the long, uncombed locks straggling about the child’s shoulders, and such a blue, pinched look in the thin face! “Oh, it’s you, Maddie, is it?” said Alice, jumping from the window and “Isn’t it pleasant here?” asked Alice, with a beaming smile. Maddie looked around, with a half shrug, upon the cheerless room, with its bit of a table and the one chair and the low, curtainless window, and then her eyes fell upon the scantily-clad little girl by her side; and then she shivered, as the dampness of her clothes sent a creeping chill through her frame; but she didn’t say it was pleasant. “Aren’t you afraid to stay here so “But I never stay alone, Maddie!” answered the dear child. “I have plenty of company—‘Tabby,’ and the flies, and now and then a spider, and everything that goes by the door, and the clouds and the sunshine and the leaves and the—oh dear! so many things, Maddie, that I can’t begin to tell you.” And she stopped short for want of breath. “And somebody you were talking to. Who was that?” asked Maddie. “Ah, yes, best of all! Don’t you know, Maddie?” said Alice, sinking her voice to a whisper, and gazing earnestly at her young companion. “Miss Mason told me how He is everywhere, and sees and hears us, and that he loves us better than our mother or father can do, and watches over us and keeps us from all harm. “Do you see Him, Alice?” asked Maddie earnestly. “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. |