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CHAPTER II.

CHILDHOOD.

"With hand and fancy active ever— Devising, doing, striving still; Defeated oft—despairing never,  Upspringiug strong in hope and will."

But time rolled on in its resistless course; the night, the storm, and the winter had passed gradually away; and little Alice, whose impressible temperament was like an air-harp, which lends a responsive vibration to every varying breeze that may sweep across it—now swelling out gayly and cheerily as a marriage-bell, now sinking to the minor chords of wailing and sadness—had passed from gloom to gladness. As in the storm and darkness she had been nervously depressed and miserable, so in due proportion did her elastic and buoyant young spirit rise to the full enjoyment of brighter days