The mountains around Sandgate were aflame with the scarlet and gold of autumn before life seemed quite as usual to Alice Page. The summer idyll had passed, and though it left a scar on her heart, she had resolutely determined to put the sweet illusion out of her mind. "I was very foolish to let him see that I cared," she thought, "for it can never be, and by and by he will forget me, or if he does think of me, it will be to recall me as one of his summer girls who had a fit of silliness." But for all that her heart ached at times, and in spite of all resolution her fingers would once in a while stray to the chords of "Ben Bolt." She tried, and fairly succeeded in answering his letters in a cool, matter-of-fact way. Occasionally when he referred to his heart hunger, and how hard he was studying in hopes that she might think better of him, she wished that he had no purse-proud and haughty mother to stand between him and a poor girl, and her next letter would be more chilly than ever. What perhaps was a bitter-sweet thought was the fact that the colder she answered him, the warmer his next letter would be. Unwisely, too, he happened to mention once that his mother had spoken of a certain young lady who belonged to the cream of Boston society as an eligible match, and advised him to show her a little attention. It was really of no moment, yet it hardened Alice against his mother, and did not help his cause. Every Sunday she took her wonted place in the choir, and after church occasionally walked alone to the cemetery and visited her mother's grave. Then, too, her brother's letters grew less frequent, and that was a source of pain. With intuitive and feminine instinct she began to assume that some woman was winning his thoughts, and as it was but natural, she could not and did not mention her belief to him. How grateful she was all through those melancholy autumn days that she had a large school to absorb her thoughts, no one, not even Aunt Susan, guessed. She was having a long and hard fight with her own feelings and imagined she had conquered them, when Thanksgiving time drew near and her brother announced he would run up and spend the day with her. She almost cried for joy at the good news, for poor, pretty, and proud-spirited Alice Page was feeling very heart-hungry when the letter came. He was just a little surprised at her vehement welcome. "Oh, I have been so lonesome, Bertie," she said when they were alone together, "and the evenings drag by so slowly! Then you do not write me as often or such nice letters as formerly, and Aunt Susan never seems to notice that I am blue. If it were not for my school, I should go crazy, I think." His heart smote him as he thought of a certain other blue-eyed girl who was now occupying his thoughts to the partial exclusion of this loving sister, and of whom he had meant to tell Alice. In an instant it occurred to him that it would hurt her now to know it, and that he had best keep it to himself.