The Mountain Girl by Emma Payne Erskine Chapter 14 Page 6

probability would be her doom. He had not mentioned her name, but he had come down with the intention of learning all he could about her, and if possible to whom she was “promised.” He feared it might be the low-browed, handsome youth bending over the garden beds beyond the hedge, and his heart rebelled and cried out fiercely within him, “What a waste, what a waste!”

Betty Towers, intent on her sewing, felt the thrill that intensified David’s tone, and she, too, thought of Cassandra. She dropped her work in her lap and looked earnestly in her husband’s face.

“James, I feel just as Doctor Thryng does — when I think of some things. When I see a tragedy coming to a human soul, I feel that a lifetime of transitory things like that is hard to