reality of Alice
Price, and her friendship for one so near the dust as he.

What was there about the poor folks' boy, bound out but yesterday to
Isom Chase, and still bound to his estate under the terms of his
articles? What was there in him to reach out and touch the sympathies of
this beautiful young woman, who came to him with the scent of violets in
her hair? Others had despised him for his poverty, and fastened a name
upon him which was in itself a reproach. And still misunderstanding,
they had carried him off to prison, charged with a dark and hideous
crime. Now this light had come to him in his despair, like the beam of
that white star above the Judean plains. Like that star, she would stand
far off to guide him, and exalt his soul by its strivings to attain her
level. There their relations must cease. He might yearn his heart away
in the gulf that lay between them, and stretch out his empty hands for
evermore, never to feel its nearer warmth upon his breast. He was the
poor folks' boy.

There was a wan sun on the day she came alone to the jail, a day so long
remembered by Joe and held by him so dear. A solemn wind was roaming the
tree-tops outside his cell window; the branches stood bleak and bare
against the mottled sky.

Alice wore a dress of some soft gray material, which seemed to embrace
her in warm comfort, and reveal her in a new and sprightly loveliness.
Her rippled hair was free upon her temples, her ear peeped out from
beneath it with a roguish tint upon it, as if it waited to be kissed,
and blushed for its own temerity. A gay little highland bonnet rode the
brown billows of her abundant hair, saucy and bold as a corsair, with
one bright little feather at its prow. Perhaps it was no more than a
goose quill, or a cock's plume dipped in dye, but to Joe it seemed as
glorious as if it had been plucked from the fairest wing in the gardens
of paradise.

The marvel of it came over Joe again as he stood close against the bars
to greet her. She, so rare and fine, so genteel and fair, caring enough
for him and his unpromising fate to put aside the joyous business of her
unhampered life and seek him in that melancholy place. It seemed a
dream, yet she was there, her delicate dark brows lifted questioningly,
as if uncertain that he would approve her unconventional adventure, a
smile in the depths of her serene, frank eyes. Her cheeks were glowing
from the sparks of morning, and her ungloved hand was reaching o