"Suspended for some College scrape. He was a great favorite here.
Father and he were famous friends. Father said that Philip had no end of
nonsense in him and was always blundering into something, but he was a
royal good fellow and would come out all right."

"Did you think he was fickle?"

"Why, I never thought whether he was or not," replied Alice looking up.
"I suppose he was always in love with some girl or another, as college
boys are. He used to make me his confidant now and then, and be terribly
in the dumps."

"Why did he come to you?" pursued Ruth you were younger than he."

"I'm sure I don't know. He was at our house a good deal. Once at a
picnic by the lake, at the risk of his own life, he saved sister Millie
from drowning, and we all liked to have him here. Perhaps he thought as
he had saved one sister, the other ought to help him when he was in
trouble. I don't know."

The fact was that Alice was a person who invited confidences, because she
never betrayed them, and gave abundant sympathy in return. There are
persons, whom we all know, to whom human confidences, troubles and
heart-aches flow as naturally its streams to a placid lake.

This is not a history of Fallkill, nor of the Montague family, worthy as
both are of that honor, and this narrative cannot be diverted into long
loitering with them. If the reader visits the village to-day, he will
doubtless be pointed out the Montague dwelling, where Ruth lived, the