!

"Leslie and Dick settled down on the West place--Rose couldn't bear to
part with her dear daughter!--and lived there for the winter. In the
spring Rose took pneumonia and died--a year too late! Leslie was
heart-broken enough over it. Isn't it terrible the way some unworthy
folks are loved, while others that deserve it far more, you'd think,
never get much affection? As for Dick, he'd had enough of quiet
married life--just like a man. He was for up and off. He went over to
Nova Scotia to visit his relations--his father had come from Nova
Scotia--and he wrote back to Leslie that his cousin, George Moore, was
going on a voyage to Havana and he was going too. The name of the
vessel was the Four Sisters and they were to be gone about nine weeks.

"It must have been a relief to Leslie. But she never said anything.
From the day of her marriage she was just what she is now--cold and
proud, and keeping everyone but me at a distance. I won't BE kept at a
distance, believe ME! I've just stuck to Leslie as close as I knew how
in spite of everything."

"She told me you were the best friend she had," said Anne.

"Did she?" exclaimed Miss Cornelia delightedly. "Well, I'm real
thankful to hear it. Sometimes I've wondered if she really did want me
around at all--she never let me think so. You must have thawed her out
more than you think, or she wouldn't have said that much itself to you.
Oh, that poor, heart-broken girl! I never see Dick Moore but I want to
run a knife clean through him."

Miss Cornelia wiped her eyes again and having relieved her feelings by
her blood-thirsty wish, took up her tale.

"Well, Leslie was left over there alone. Dick had put in the crop
before he went, and old Abner looked after it. The summer went by and
the Four Sisters didn't come back. The Nova Scotia Moores
investigated, and found she had got to Havana and discharged her cargo
and took on another and left for home; and that was all they ever found
out about her. By degrees people began to talk of Dick Moore as one
that was dead. Almost everyone believed that he was, though no one
felt certain, for men have turned up here at the harbor after they'd
been gone for years. Leslie never thought he was dead--and she was
right. A thousand pities too! The next summer Captain Jim was in
Havana--that was before he gave up the sea, of course. He thought he'd
poke round a bit--Captain Jim was always meddlesome, just like a
man--and