he Princess Sofia is to enter
without more delay or formality into possession of her mother's estate.

Papa Dupont put down the letter. "It is plain enough," he expounded: "if
this father is found, we can whistle for our money; whereas if I were
married to Sofia, as her husband I would control--"

He broke off sharply, and added in consternation: "One million thunders!"

Sofia stood between them.

And yet she wasn't the Sofia they knew, but another person altogether, a
transfigured and exalted Sofia, aflame with righteous wrath and
contemptuous with the pride of birth which had leaped into full being a
moment since.

A princess, born the daughter of a princess, now she knew and looked it.

All thought of fear or deference was gone, she had nothing left but scorn
for these two despicable creatures, the fat harpy and her crapulent consort
who had battened so long upon her misery, who had held her in bondage to
the most menial tasks of their wretched restaurant while they filched and
hoarded the money paid them for giving her the care and the advantages that
were her due.

And something of this new-found dignity, to which her title was so
unquestionable, which set her upon a level from which she could not but
look down on these two paltry frauds, so abashed the Frenchwoman that the
phrases of invective and vilification which gushed instinctively from the
foul springs of her temper stuck in her throat, she couldn't utter them,
and she well-nigh choked with impotent fury and fear as the girl spoke.

"You swindlers!" Sofia said, deliberately. "You poor cheats! To pocket a
thousand pounds a year of my mother's money--and make me slave for you in
your wretched cafe! And for eighteen years! For eighteen years you have
been robbing me of every right I had in the world, robbing me of everything
I've needed and longed and prayed for, everything you were paid to give
me--while I drudged for you and endured your ill-temper and your abuse and
the contamination of association with you!... Give me that letter."

She possessed herself of it unopposed. But now Mama Therese found her
tongue.

"What--what do you mean?" she gasped, livid with fright. Was not a fortune
slipping through her avaricious fingers? "What are you going to do?"

"Do?" Sofia cried. "I don't know, more than this: I'm not going to
stay another hour under this roof, I'm going to leave to-night--now--
immediately! That's what I'm going to do!"

"Where are y