The Project Gutenberg eBook, Little Alice's Palace, by Anonymous

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Title: Little Alice's Palace
or, The Sunny Heart

Author: Anonymous

Release Date: August 16, 2006 [eBook #19063]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE ALICE'S PALACE***

Transcribed from the 1872 T. Nelson and Sons edition by David Price,
email ccx074@pglaf.org

LITTLE ALICE'S PALACE;
OR,
THE SUNNY HEART.

LONDON:
T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW;
EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK.

1872.

{i:Miss Mason and Lolly: p0.jpg}

CHAPTER I.

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 almost to laugh and sing, so full of joy
were they when they could lift their heads from the dust.

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
brothers and sisters; no mother at home, for they were very poor, and her
mother must be gone at early dawn to labour for their food and clothing
and shelter;--and so Alice had to make companions of the blades of grass
that nodded at her through the drops.

"Oh, you beauties!" said she gladly; "and I know who made you, too, and
what