y must endure for a lifetime."

David was thinking of Cassandra and what in all 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 endure. Fancy, James! Think of
Cassandra. You know her, Doctor Thryng, of course. They live just below
your place. She is the Widow Farwell's daughter, but her name is
Merlin."

David arrested his impatient stride and, drawing a chair near her,
dropped into it. "What about her?" he said. "What is the tragedy?"

"I think, Betty, the hills must keep their own secrets," said the
bishop.

His little wife compressed her lips, glanced over the hedge at the young
man who happened at the moment to have straightened from his bent
position among the plants and was gazing at their guest, then resumed
her sewing.

"Is it something I must not be told?" asked David, quietly. "But I may
have my suspicions. Naturally we can't help that."

"I think it is better to know the truth. I don't like suspicions. They
are sure to lead to harm. James, let me put it to the doctor as I see
it, and see what he thinks of it."

"As you please, dear."

"It's like this. Have you seen anything of that girl or observed her
much?"

"I certainly have."

"Then, of course, you can see that she is one of the best of the
mountain people, can't you? Well! She has promised to marry--promised to
marry--think of it! one of the wildest, most reckless of those mountain
boys, one that she knows very well has been in illicit distilling. He
is a lawbreaker in that way; and, more than that, he drinks, and in a
drunken row he shot dead his friend."

"Ah!" David rose, turned away, and again paced the piazza. Then he
returned to his seat. "I see. The young man I tried to help off when I
first arrived."

"Yes. There he is."

"I see. Handsome