At a Girl's Mercy, or, The Fortunes of War — page 149: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

138 AT A GIRL'S MERCY. back to her remembrance the note he sent her not so very long ago, and that had been with her so con- stantly, though there was little need of her reading it over again, she knew so well every word by heart. _She smiled sadly as she paused in the gar- den, where the shadows were darker than they had been for a long time, there being no sunlight to-day, the heavens gray with clouds. She paused and put her hand in her pocket for the note. But it was not there. She started in wonder and dismay, and only remembered that it must have dropped, and been crushed among the flowers she so ruthlessly trod upon that dreadful morning when Howard Blake broke so abruptly to her the news of her friend’s death. She had it in her hand when he came up the garden, she remembered, and after that she had no recollection. of what became of it, only it must have dropped and been crushed with the flowers. The quick tears sprang to her eyes, but she would not let them fall. It was her own carelessness that had robbed her of her friend’s last written word, and she should not spend any time in vain weeping. - But she bit her lip with vexation as she turned for a moment, and looked down to where she stood that morning when the dread news came. The walk had been cleared of all dead flowers and leaves that fell, as was the gardener’s habit every morning, and her flowers must have been gathered with the others and thrown away. Perhaps John knew of the white bit of paper among the flowers. She would ask him. If he had found the note he might have saved it for her. Or if he had not found it he would search and perhaps find it for her. But no, John had seen noth- ing of the paper, had seen no paper in the garden on that morning. There seldom was paper there, If ecomicbooks.co