with the proceeds, get the few necessaries for commencing her small
school. The good man cheerfully promised to do so, took the parcel
from Alice, and carried it to his own house.

And so I bade farewell to dear Alice, and her neat cottage, and her
sweet children. I was parted forever from that innocent head that
had cherished only good and pure thoughts. I was no longer to be
dressed by her dear hands. I was never again to shade and adorn her
lovely face, nor fall in ringlets around her sloping shoulders, nor
ever tremble again with the beatings of her gay and generous heart,
as I often had when she let me fall over her neck and shoulders.

Nothing that ever had life in it could be insensible to such a
sorrow as this. How I envied the few locks she kept around her
precious forehead! How I wished that scissors had never been
invented!

The good curate, faithful to his promise, took me to the hair
dresser in London, according to the direction in the advertisement;
and, before opening the paper which contained me, told him the story
of Alice, of her trials, and of her excellent character and conduct,
of her present need, and of her purpose to support and educate her
children by her own efforts. He told him that there never was such a
beautiful head of hair, and that he hoped he would be willing to
give something handsome for it.

When the old clergyman opened the paper, and exhibited me to the
hair dresser, he took me out as fondly as if I had been a baby, and
shook me so as to make the ringlets curl again, but they would not.