And now--no--I cannot
paint the might of that stunning blow! She knew not, she dreamed not, of
the kind precautions Maltravers had taken; and he had not sufficiently
calculated on her thorough ignorance of the world. How could she divine
that the magistrate, not a mile distant from her, could have told her
all she sought to know? Could she but have met the gardener--or the old
woman-servant--all would have been well! These last, indeed, she had
the forethought to ask for. But the woman was dead, and the gardener
had taken a strange service in some distant county. And so died her last
gleam of hope. If one person who remembered the search of Maltravers had
but met and recognised her! But she had been seen by so few--and now the
bright, fresh girl was so sadly altered! Her race was not yet run, and
many a sharp wind upon the mournful seas had the bark to brave before
its haven was found at last.

CHAPTER IV.

"Patience and sorrow strove
Which should express her goodliest."--SHAKESPEARE.

"Je _la_ plains, je _la_ blame, et je suis son appui."*-VOLTAIRE.

* I pity her, I blame her, and am her support.

AND now Alice felt that she was on the wide world alone, with her
child--no longer to be protected, but to protect; and after the first
few days of agony, a new spirit, not indeed of hope, but of endurance,
passed within her. Her solitary wanderings, with God her only guide, had
tended greatly to elevate and confirm her character. She felt a strong
reliance on His mysterious mercy--she felt, too, the responsibility of
a mother. Thrown for so many months upon her own resources, even for the
bread of life, her intellect was unconsciously sharpened, and a habit
of patient fortitude had strengthened a nature originally clinging and
femininely soft. She resolved to pass into some other county, for she
could neither bear the thoughts that haunted the neighbourhood around
her, nor think, without a loathing horror, of the possibility of her
father's return. Accordingly, one day, she renewed her wanderings--and
after a week's travel, arrived at a small village. Charity is so common
in England, it so spontaneously springs up everywhere, like the good
seed by the roadside, that she had rarely wanted the bare necessaries of
existence. And her humble manner, and sweet, well-tuned voice, so free
from the professional whine of mendicancy, had usually its charm for the
sternest. So she generally obtained enough to buy bre