"
"But we were brother and sister," cried Lindy, looking up.
"'Twould have been all right if he'd let it stop there," replied Mrs.
Putnam. "Who put it into his head that there was no law agin a man
marryin' his adopted sister? You wuz a woman grown of eighteen, and he
wuz only a young boy of sixteen, and you made him love yer and turn
agin his mother, and then we had ter send him away from home ter keep
yer apart, and then you ran after him, and then he died, and it broke my
heart. You wuz the cause of it, but for yer he would be livin' now, a
comfort to his poor old mother. I hated yer then for what yer did. Ev'ry
time I look at yer I think of the happiness you stole from me, an' I
hate yer wusser'n ever."
"Oh, mother, mother!" sobbed Lindy.
"I'm not your mother," screamed Mrs. Putnam. "I s'pose you must have had
one, but you'll never know who she wuz; she didn't care nuthin' fer yer,
for she left yer in the road, and Silas was fool enough to pick yer up
and bring yer home. What yer right name is nobody knows, and mebbe yer
ain't got none."
At this taunt Lindy arose to her feet and looked defiantly at Mrs.
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