he wondering rejoinder.

"Looks like the house, don't it? Down at the heel and shabby. Say,
have they got much money, after all--them Balls? You're a neighbor,
I suppose? You must know 'em well."

"I live here," said the other girl rather sternly.

"Huh? You mean around here?"

"I live here with Cap'n Ira and Mrs, Ball," was the further
explanation.

"You _do_? You?"

Her voice suddenly became shrill. It rose half an octave with
surprise. Her gaze, which had merely been insolent, now became
suspicious. She scrutinized Sheila closely.

"I didn't know the Balls had anybody living with 'em," she resumed
at length. "You ain't been here long, have you?"

"Oh, for some time," was the cheerful rejoinder.

"They hire you?"

"Not--not exactly. You see, I am sort of related to them, too."

"A relation of this old Cap'n Ira?"

"Of Mrs. Ball."

"Huh! Say, what's you name?"

"My name is Bostwick," was the composed reply. "You did not mention
yours, did you?"

"_Bostwick?_"

"They call me Ida May Bostwick," said Sheila, demurely smiling, and
even then without a suspicion of the vortex into which she was being
drawn.

"_Ida May Bostwick!_"

The visitor rose out of her seat as though a spring had been
released under her. Her eyes flattened, distended, and sparked like
micaceous rock in the dark. Her hands clenched till the pointed,
highly polished nails bit into the palms.

"What do you say? _You_ are Ida May Bostwick?"

At that moment Sheila Macklin saw the light. It smote upon her brain
like a shaft from a great searchlight; a penetrating, cleaving beam
that might have laid bare her very soul before the accusing
stranger. She staggered, retreating, shrinking, but only for a
moment.

The pallor that had come into her face left it. Color rose softly
under the exquisite skin and there came a haughty uplift of her
chin. She stared back into the blazing, greenish-brown eyes of the
other, her own eyes unafraid, challenging.

"Do you doubt me?" she demanded, with as much composure as though a
secure position and a conscience quite at ease were hers. "Who are
you? In what way are you interested in my name or in my identity?"

"Why, you--you--" The visitor was for the moment stricken
speechless. But it was the speechlessness of rage--of wild and
uncontrollable fury. Then she caught her breath. "You dirty cheat,
you! You stand there and tell me you are Ida Bostwick? You've got
gall--you certainly _have_ got ga