Her pupils worshipped her, but the grown people thought she was rather too distant and reserved.

They had been used to merry, jolly girls who joined eagerly in the social life of the place.

Alice Reade held herself aloof from it--not disdainfully, but as one to whom these things were of small importance.

She was very fond of books and solitary rambles; she was not at all shy but she was as sensitive as a flower; and after a time Carlisle people were content to let her live her own life and no longer resented her unlikeness to themselves.
She boarded with the Armstrongs, who lived beyond Golden Milestone around the hill of pines.

Until the snow disappeared she went out to the main road by the long Armstrong lane; but when spring came she was wont to take a shorter way, down the pine hill, across the brook, past Jasper Dale's garden, and out through his lane.