120 
THE BEAUTIFUL LADDER. 
Boy/’ and the visitors were admitted to a scene 
that at once awakened sympathy. The pale 
and careworn mother was engaged in parching 
corn in a small skillet, the only provision for 
dinner which her meagre larder afforded. Re¬ 
clining on a rude lounge, with a face pale almost 
to transparency and form emaciated until there 
hardly seemed enough left to retain her feeble 
animation, Alice was doubly engaged in knit¬ 
ting and at the same time giving lessons to her 
brother and young sister. Without such pe¬ 
culiar surroundings she would at once have 
attracted attention from the most careless ob¬ 
server. Her features, though so spare by rea¬ 
son of long suffering and poor nourishment, 
were still of exquisite moulding, while her 
paleness made more brilliant a pair of black 
eyes that fairly seemed to dazzle. Her hair, 
black as the raven’s plumes, and naturally wav¬ 
ing over her alabaster forehead, gave a fittine 
completeness to a beauty that seemed associ¬ 
ated with one so frail only to show how it could 
triumph over opposing forces. The effect on 
the young men was strongly marked. They 
had expected to witness a scene of poverty, 
where only sympathy with physical suffering 
