I hold we hadn’t ought to clapper-claw one another, and it isn’t often you’ll find me running down another woman. But I never had much use for Rose Elliott. She was spoiled to begin with, believe me, and she was nothing but a lazy, selfish, whining creature. Frank was no hand to work, so they were poor as Job’s turkey. Poor! They lived on potatoes and point, believe me. They had two children—Leslie and Kenneth. Leslie had her mother’s looks and her father’s brains, and something she didn’t get from either of them. She took after her Grandmother West—a splendid old lady. She was the brightest, friendliest, merriest thing when she was a child, Anne. Everybody liked her. She was her father’s favorite and she was awful fond of him. They were ‘chums,’ as she used to say. She couldn’t see any of his faults—and he was a taking sort of man in some ways.
“Well, when Leslie was twelve years old, the first dreadful thing happened. She worshipped little Kenneth—he was four years younger than her, and he was a dear little chap. And he was killed one day—fell off a big load of hay just as it was going into the barn, and the wheel went right over his little body and crushed the life out of it. And mind you, Anne, Leslie saw it. She was looking down from the loft. She gave one screech—the hired man said he never heard such a sound in all his life—he said it would ring in his ears till Gabriel’s trump drove
