not sympathize with Ellen's indignation--

"You shouldn't ought to have expected a penny, the way you treated him."

"I don't see why he shouldn't have left me at least some furniture,
seeing there was about five hundred pounds of my money in that farm.
He's done rather well out of me on the whole--making me no allowance
whatever when he was alive."

"Because I wouldn't let him make it--I've got some pride if you
haven't."

"Your pride doesn't stop you taking what ought to have been mine."

"'Ought to'.... I never heard such words. Not that I'm pleased he should
make it all over to me, but it ain't my doing."

Ellen looked at her fixedly out of her eyes which were like the shallow
floods.

"Are you quite sure? Are you quite sure, Joanna, that you honestly
played a sister's part by me while I was away?"

"What d'you mean?"

"I mean, Arthur seems to have got a lot fonder of you while I was away
than he--er--seemed to be before."

Joanna gaped at her.

"Of course it was only natural," continued Ellen smoothly--"I know I
treated him badly--but don't you think you needn't have taken advantage
of that?"

"Well, I'm beat ... look here, Ellen ... that man was mine from the
first, and I gave him over to you, and I never took him back nor wanted
him, neither."

"How generous of you, Jo, to have 'given him over' to me."

A little maddening smile twisted the corners of her mouth, and Joanna
remembered that now Arthur was dead and there was no hope of Ellen going
back to him she need not spare her secret.

"Yes, I gave him to you," she said bluntly--"I saw you wanted him, and I
didn't want him myself, so I said to him 'Arthur, look here, you take
her'--and he said to me--'I'd sooner have you, Jo'--but I said 'you
won't have me even if you wait till the moon's cheese, so there's no
good hoping for that. You take the little sister and please me'--and he
said 'I'll do it to please you, Jo.' That's the very thing that
happened, and I'm sorry it happened now--and I never told you before,
because I thought it ud put you against him, and I wanted you to go back
to him, being his wife; but now he's dead, and you may as well know,
seeing the upstart notions you've got."

She looked fiercely at Ellen, to watch the effect of the blow, but was
disconcerted to see that the little maddening smile still lingered.
There were dimples at the flexing corners of her sister's mouth, and now
they were little wells of disbelieving la