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"How did he bring it about?"
"Oh, it was an iniquitous thing! I'll never forgive
Rose West. You see, dearie, Abner Moore held the
mortgage on the West farm, and the interest was overdue
some years, and Dick just went and told Mrs. West that
if Leslie wouldn't marry him he'd get his father to
foreclose the mortgage. Rose carried on
terrible--fainted and wept, and pleaded with Leslie not
to let her be turned out of her home. She said it
would break her heart to leave the home she'd come to
as a bride. I wouldn't have blamed her for feeling
dreadful bad over it--but you wouldn't have thought
she'd be so selfish as to sacrifice her own flesh and
blood because of it, would you? Well, she was.
And Leslie gave in--she loved her mother so much she
would have done anything to save her pain. She married
Dick Moore. None of us knew why at the time. It
wasn't till long afterward that I found out how her
mother had worried her into it. I was sure there was
something wrong, though, because I knew how she had
snubbed him time and again, and it wasn't like Leslie
to turn face--about like that. Besides, I knew that
Dick Moore wasn't the kind of man Leslie could ever
fancy, in spite of his good looks and dashing ways. Of
course, there was no wedding, but Rose asked me to go
and see them married. I went, but I was sorry I did.
I'd seen Leslie's face at her brother's funeral and at
her father's funeral--and now it seemed to me I was
seeing it at her own funeral. But Rose was smiling as
a basket of chips, believe ME!
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