"You are going to stay, young lady," he said between his teeth, "and hear what your mother has to say about you." His voice made Adelaide shudder, even before she saw the black hate his eyes were hurling at his sister.
"Yes, we want you, Ellen, and you, Del, to know her as she is," Mrs.
Whitney now raged on.

"When she married, her father gave her a dowry, bought that title for her--paid as much as his whole fortune now amounts to.

He did it solely because I begged him to.

She knows the fight I had to win him over.

And now that he's gone, without making a will, she says she'll have her _legal_ rights! Her _legal_ rights! She'll take _one-third_ of what he left.