ll!

"I'd like to know who the devil you are? Comin' right here, wormin'
your way into a place that don't belong to you, gettin' on the soft
side of my aunt an' uncle, I s'pose, and thinkin' to grab all they
got when they die. Oh, I know _your_ kind, miss!

"But I'll show you up. I'll let 'em know what's what and who's who.
They must be precious soft to take a girl like you in and think
she's Ida Bostwick. How _dare_ you?"

She stamped her foot. She advanced upon the other threateningly. But
the girl she had accused did not retreat. The flush of outrage and
that haughty expression were still upon her countenance. She spoke
very firmly but in a voice so low that it contrasted the more
sharply with the enraged squall of her opponent. She asked:

"Who are _you_, if you please?"

"You've cheek to ask me. I'd ought to spit on you, so I had! But
I'll tell you who I am--and it'll hold you for a while, I guess. I
am Ida May Bostwick. You know full and well you are makin' out to
these rich relations of mine that you are me. I'll show you up,
miss! I'll have you whipped--or jailed--or something. The gall of
you!"

The other girl heard her with unchanging face. Somehow, that steady,
unshrinking look gave Ida May Bostwick pause. It was she who
recoiled.

CHAPTER XX

THE LIE

The girl who had seized upon the chance of becoming Ida May
Bostwick, and so escaping the horror and despair that enshrouded
Sheila Macklin like a filthy mantle, stood after the first blast as
firm as a rock under the torrent of vituperation and rage which
poured from the other girl's lips.

The real Ida May--weak, save in venomous hate, unstable as water, as
shallow as a pool of glass--could have joined issue in a
hair-pulling, face-scratching brawl. She was of that breed and
up-bringing.

Sheila Macklin's very dignity held Ida May Bostwick at arm's length.
With all right and title to the name and place Sheila had usurped,
the new arrival was awed by the impostor's look. Following that
first--and merely instantaneous--expression of horrified surprise at
Ida May's announcement of her identity, this girl, who was so secure
in the confidence of the Balls and the community, proceeded to look
down at the claimant of her achieved position with utter calmness.

It made the real Ida May almost afraid. Certain as she was of her
own name and the assertion of her own personality, the bold and
unshaken opposition confronting her in the very look