The Mountain Girl by Emma Payne Erskine Chapter 22 Page 3

niece around and should “pack her off whar she come from.”

Therefore Cassandra had made her timid request — the first evidence of shrinking from her husband she had ever given. Why was it? he asked himself. What had he ever said or done to make her prefer a request in that way? But it was over in an instant, and her own poised manner returned as they ate and chatted together.

Little Hoyle came running up to eat with them. He had conceived a dislike to the home below since the incumbent had come to take his sister’s place, and evaded thus, as often as possible, his mother’s vigilance. David did not mind the intrusion, but suffered the adoring little chap to sit at his side, ever twisting his small body about to fix his great eyes on David’s face, while