Three more days of Alice's visit in Boston had passed, and quickly to her. Blanch had kept her threat, and literally taken possession of her new friend, and installed her in the guest room of the Nason residence. Then she set out to entertain Alice to the best of her ample ability. To be taken in hand, as it were, by a highly cultured and wealthy young lady, and to have a liveried and obsequious coachman on duty to convey them anywhere and everywhere, was a new experience, and a decided change from Sandgate. The two went shopping mornings, and to matinÉes or made calls afternoons, or discussed styles and effects with modistes; evenings it was a theatre or else a quiet evening at home, when Mr. Nason was in evidence. As for Frank, he was barely allowed the privilege of procuring tickets and buying bonbons, or else making one of a rubber of whist. "Don't you dare to say any sweet things while she is here," Blanch had cautioned him at the outset. "In the first place it is not good form, and in the second it would offend her. Be as gallant as you know how, but do not let mamma see that you are any more attentive to Alice than to Ede and I. If you hope to win your pretty schoolma'am you must pay your court in her own home, not here." It is needless to say Frank obeyed. It was not long ere Alice began to feel herself quite at home in the Nason family, and to notice that Mrs. Nason treated her in a motherly way which was both nice and kind. That excellent lady also expressed a warm sympathy for Alice in her orphaned condition, and showed an interest in her occupation at home.

"I see that you are fond of your little charges," she said, after Alice had described her school and some of the peculiarities of her pupils who wore out-grown roundabouts or calico pinafores, "and I suppose they grow fond of you as well."

"I try to make them," replied Alice, "and I find that is the easiest way to govern them. I seldom have to punish any one, and when I do it hurts me more than the culprit. In a way, children are like grown people and a little tact and a few words said in the right way are more potent than fear of punishment."

"And do you not find life in so small a place rather monotonous?" asked Mrs. Nason.

"Oh, yes," replied Alice, "it is not much like city life as I understand it; but having lived in the country all my life, as I have, I am accustomed to it and do not mind. It is delightful to have theatres and the excitement of social duties, as I imagine you have all the time, and yet I am not sure I should like it. I fancy once in a while I should sigh for a shady spot in the woods in summer where I could read a book or hear the birds sing. It is only in winter that I should like to live in the city."

But the pleasant days of Alice's stay in Boston passed rapidly until only two were left, when Blanch said to her, "I have invited a few of my friends here to meet you to-night, and I want you to do me a favor, and that is, sing for me."

"Oh, please do not ask that," replied Alice hastily. "I do not sing well enough, and fear that some of your friends might be critics, and that would quite upset me."

"But you sing in church," assented Blanch, "and that is much harder."

"That is nothing," answered Alice, smiling; "not one in ten of those country people know one note from another, and that fact makes me indifferent. Here not only all your people, but all your friends, hear the finest operatic singers, and poor I would cut a sorry figure in contrast."

"But you will sing just once to please me, won't you?" pleaded Blanch.

"I will not promise," was the answer; "I will see how many are here and how my courage holds out."

When that evening came Blanch waited until Alice had become somewhat acquainted with the little gathering and the reserve had worn away, when she went to her and putting one arm around her waist, whispered, "Come, now, dear, just one little song; only one to please me." At first Alice thought to refuse, but somehow the pride that was in her came to the rescue, and the feeling that she would show her friend that she was not a timid country girl gave her the needed courage, and she arose and stepped across the room to the grand piano that stood in one corner. Her cheeks were flushed, and a defiant curl was on her lips, and then without a moment's hesitation she seated herself and sang "The Last Rose of Summer." She had sung it many, many times before, and every trill and exquisite quiver of its wondrous pathos was as familiar to her as the music of the brook where she had played in childhood. I am not certain but some of that brook's sweet melody came as an inspiration to her, for now she sang as she never had before, and to an audience that listened entranced. When the last sweet note had passed her red lips she arose quickly and returned to her seat; and then, had she not been so modest that she dared not look at any one, she would have seen two little tears steal out of Mrs. Nason's eyes, to be quickly brushed away with a priceless bit of lace. Sweet Alice, the motherless little country girl, had from that moment entered the heart of Mrs. Nason and won a regard she hardly realized then; in fact, not at all until long afterward. When the applause had subsided it was Frank that next pleaded.

"Won't you sing one for me now, Miss Page?" he asked. "I bought the song I wanted to-day," and going to the piano he unrolled and spread upon the music rack—"Ben Bolt"!

"But I only consented to sing once for Blanch," Alice replied, "and there are others here who I am sure can do much better."

"Come, please," he said coaxingly, "just this one for me." And then once more Alice touched the keys.

Back to a simply furnished parlor in Sandgate, with its lamp on the piano and open fire burning brightly as it had one year ago, went two of that company in thought, and maybe others there, whose youth had been among country scenes, were carried back to them by the singer's voice, and saw a by-way schoolhouse "and a shaded nook by a running brook," in fancy; or perhaps a little white stone in some grass-grown corner, where, "obscure and alone," lay a boyhood's sweetheart! For all the pathos of our lost youth trilled in the voice of Alice Page as she sang that old, old song of the long ago. And not one in that little audience but was enthralled by the winsome witchery of her voice, and for the moment was young again in thought and feeling. As for Mrs. Nason, when the guests had departed she turned to Alice, and taking her face in her hands exclaimed, "I want to kiss the lips that have brought tears to my eyes to-night."

Sweet Alice had won her crown.

The last evening of her visit she decided to spend with her brother, and when she came to bid adieu to her hostess, that much dreaded haughty mother had resolved herself into a charming old lady, who said: "Now I can see why my daughter went into raptures over some one who I hope will visit us again and stay much longer." It was a graceful tribute, and one that touched the motherless girl as few words could.

"It is odd, Bertie," she said to her brother that evening, when they were alone together, "how different people seem when one comes to know them. Now from one or two things which you have said, and an admission that Frank made a year ago, I felt I should be sure to hate his mother, and now I think she is perfectly lovely."

"So she is to those she likes," answered Albert, "but if you had not shown the tact you have, my dear sis, I am not sure you would now be praising her. You carried her heart by storm last evening, as well as the rest of the company, and you deserved it, for I never heard you sing so well."

"I am glad I didn't break down, anyway," she replied, "for when I touched the piano my heart seemed in my mouth."

"Yes, and in your voice, too," he replied with pride, "and that is what carried us all away."

For an hour they discussed the Nasons, while Albert noticed his sister avoided any mention of Frank, and then he said: "Well, sis, which of the rents we have looked at do you think I best engage and when will you be ready to move?"

Alice was silent and for a few minutes she pursed her lips and looked at the chilly shipwreck scene near her as if it contained a revelation.

"I am not so sure," she answered finally, "that we should make the change at present. If I were certain your beautiful waif of the sea would adhere to her filial resolution, it would be different, but I am not. If you secure this legacy for her that you told me about and she donates it to those old people, as you say she intends to, why the next thing will be an invitation to my dear brother's wedding, and that is one reason why I hesitate to make this change. Another is that I do not think it would be good for Aunt Susan. She says she is ready and willing, but when she has left all the associations of her life behind, she will just sit and grieve her poor old heart away in silence."

Albert did not and could not answer all these surmises, and to a certain extent he felt that his sister was right. He certainly meant to coax Telly to marry him, even if she insisted on spending most of her time where she felt her duty called her. Then he had felt all along that Alice might be persuaded to become one of the Nason family, though his Thanksgiving visit had about dispelled that idea. As for Aunt Susan, if the proposed change was not likely to be a permanent one, it would not be best to make it at all. Deliberating thus he sat in silence for a time, and leisurely puffed smoke rings in the air as he studied the ceiling. Finally an idea came to him.

"My dear sister," he said, "have you considered or do you consider Frank in your calculations? and if so, where does he come in, may I ask?"

Alice's blue eyes assumed an expression like unto a pansy, and her face the placidity of a mill-pond as she answered, "I had quite forgotten his existence!"