Marion Marlowe's True Heart, or, How a Daughter Forgave — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

4 MY QUEEN. and in an instant her heart was bleeding for him. “Father! Father!” she cried, going over to him as he sank upon a chair and putting her hand almost tenderly upon his shoulder. “You have been hard with us all, father; but we will forgive you! Just say that you love us, and that in future you will be more kind.” “It’s tew late, Marion,” cried the old man, huskily. “There’s no home fer yew tew come back tew now, so it don’t make no diff’rence about your old father! We air goin’ tew the Poor Farm, yewr mother an’ me, an’ I guess she’s right—she sez it’s jedgement upon us!” Marion Marlowe’s lips trembled, but only with a smile. Her eyes shone through her tears as she gazed steadily at her father. There was something she must know be-" fore she told them the truth about the errand that had brought her back to the mortgaged homestead. “Father,” she began, sternly, “there is something I must know! If you refuse to tell me, I will never forgive you! What scrape was Samantha’s husband in when you loaned him that five hundred dollars? Tell me the actual truth, father, for 1 am deter- mined to know it.” Deacon Marlowe raised his head with the old, stubborn motion that his wife and daugh- ter knew so well, but one look at Marion’s face made his glance waver considerably. “T can’t tell yew—it’s Tom’s secret,” he be- gan, but Marion interrupted him. 9 “Vou must tell me,’ or | she said, firmly, will employ a detective to find out for me.” Deacon Marlowe’s jaw dropped and his The word detective to his country ears was syn- cheeks became almost ashen in color. onymous with everything that meant diaboli- cal cleverness. “Yew wouldn’t dew that!” he began, and stopped. There was something in Marion's ‘say much about it, excep’ I had tew tell Sile, mortgaging the farm, you'd get rich in a min- eyes that told him plainly that she would do it. : “Waal, I'll tell ef I must,” he muttered at last, “‘an’, after all, I don’t much keer, fer — ; : Tom’s behaved mighty mean tew me. I let = him hev the money when he went tew New York that time, an’ I reckon he lost it in some of them hocus-pocus games—lI don’t know - what they call ’em, it’s ‘bunco,’ or sumthin’! — Anyhow, he lost the money, an’ come home with a satchel full of worthless green paper, ~* an’ it’s nat’ral thet neither on us wanted tew _ ‘cause he took the mor’gage.”’ Mrs. Marlowe stared at her husband in | breathless interest while he was talking. In z the height of her indignation she had never dreamed that he was such a sinner. As for Marion, her first thought was one | of disgust ; then, the picture of her gawky brother-in-law being “buncoed” by sharpers rose before her mental vision, and, in spite of herself, she. burst out laughing. “So you were a ‘green goods’ victim, dad!” she cried, hysterically. “You thought, by ute! Oh, it’s no wonder that city people — That’s — why they never lose a chance of imposing — think we country folks are green! upon us!” “Waal, it’s did, an’ thet’s all there is about — it,” said her father, dolefully, “an’ it’s me an’ 7 yewr mother -thet’s got ter bear the brunt. 7 Yew an’ Dollie air free, an’ yew look pros- perous, Marion.” y The old man was weakening very rapidly | now. He was fast becoming meek and sub-— missive in his manner, “We've had an awful struggle,” was Mar- “We've been without money and almost without friends, but Dollie ion’s-slow answer, has got a position as typeweiter in view, and when | get back I’m to be a nurse, Gomicbool *