"Oh, it's you, Maddie, is it?" said Alice, jumping from the window and taking the hand of the new-comer. "But it was a pity to get so wet. I'm glad you've come. We'll keep house together till it clears away, and then maybe we'll have a nice walk. First we must dry your clothes, though." And she put some sticks in the fireplace, and putting a match to them, stationed Maddie before the blaze, while she held the skirt out to dry. "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 much alone, Alice?" she asked, giving another glance about the room. "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. If you go to the school with me you'll learn all about it, Maddie dear. No, no; I'm never _alone_ though mother _is gone_ all the long day." "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. CHAPTER II. The shower did not last long, and the warm sun melted the diamonds from the grass, so that it was soon fit for the little girls to go out into the freshness and enjoy the pleasant air.