`` 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 would n'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 did n'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 he went to inquiring round among the sailors ' boarding houses and places like that , to see if he could find out anything about the crew of the Four Sisters . He 'd better have let sleeping dogs lie , in my opinion !
Well , he went to one out-of-the-way place , and there he found a man he knew at first sight it was Dick XXXXX , though he had a big beard .
Abner Anne Dick Havana Leslie Moore Moores left right years