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.