The Bailiff's Scheme Author:Harriet Lewis Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Op ail rny sweet, girlish dreams," and her proud cheeks flushed, "and become the wife of Jason Hadci. Such a sacrifice would be worse than death, if he is the ma... more »n he gave promise of becoming five years ago. But there is a possibility that he may have changed. Foreign travel and study may have improved him. I will not make up my mind until I see him." She leaned over the parapet, looking down upon the swollen stream with its surface burden of dead leaves, and the tears dropped silently under her vail, relieving her overburdened heart. Suddenly the silence around her was broken by the approaching tread of a man, who came from the direction of the village. The new-comer was Jason Hadd, who was on his way to the Towers, fashionably dressed after the continental fashion, and filled with an ambition to take the heart cf Rosamond Wilchester by storm. Rosamond did not look around, but pressed closer against the side of the bridge, desiring to escape the passer's scrutiny. That very action fastened his attention upon her. He noticed that the slight and shrinking figure was instinct with a rare grace, that the half-bowed head was daintily poised upon the slender throat, and that the gloved hands resting on the railing against which she leaned were small and exquisitely shaped. "A rustic Hebe, I'll risk a sovereign," he muttered to himself, pausing. " By Jove, she carries herself like a princess !" Rosamond's plain, Quaker-hued attire misled him in his mental estimate of her rank in life, and he thought : " Some lady's maid, or farmer's daughter, judging from her dress and that thick brown vail. I presume no gentleman of my cultivation has ever sookeu to her. How her heart would flutter if I were to speak to her May as well practice love-making, just to get my h...« less