ave you to thank for the
chance, I am sure."

"Well, I put in a good word for you when I had the opportunity," said
Frank modestly, "and the sermon you preached me once, and which I
reported to dad, may have had some weight with him."

In a week Albert had his office fitted up, and then he presented himself
to John Nason, and after that he not only had all the responsibility
thrust upon him that he was able to assume, but he no longer felt
himself in the position of a menial. To one of his proud spirit it meant
self-respect, life, and sunshine.

CHAPTER X

AMID THE GREEN MOUNTAINS

There are two characteristics sure to be found among the residents of a
small country village, and those are kindness of heart and a love of
gossip. The former showed itself in Sandgate when Albert Page went to
those his family were indebted to, and, with much humiliation to
himself, asked them to wait. Mr. Hobbs' reply is all that is necessary
to quote, as it was a reflex of all the others.

"Don't ye worry one whit, Mr. Page," he said; "take your own time, an'
if it's a year it's no matter. The only reason I called with the bill
was because it's customary when an estate is bein' settled. Tell your
folks I expect and want 'em to keep right on tradin' with me."

When Alice appealed to Mr. Mears she also met only the kindest of words.

"Ye can drive back an' forth, an' not be away from home over night,"
said he, "till snow comes, an' then I'll git ye a boardin'-place clus by
the schoolhouse and fetch and carry ye Mondays and Fridays."

The love of gossip showed itself as distinctly in a general discussion
by the townsfolk of the affairs of the Pages. For a month after Albert
had gone away and Alice had begun teaching, they were the subject of
much after-church and sewing-circle talk.

"If Alice could only git married now," observed Mrs. Mears, who was
perhaps the leader among the gossips in Sandgate, "it 'ud be the most
fortunit thing that could happen, but she holds her head perty middlin'
high for a poor girl, which p'raps is nat'ral, she comin' from one o'
the oldest families. They say there wa'n't nothin' left to either on 'em
when the Widder Page died, an' the wonder is how she managed to git
along as well as she did."

Fortunately none of this gossip, of which Mrs. Mears' remarks are only a
sample, reached Alice, for she had enough to bear as it was. The
vexations of an effort to pound the rudiments of an education i