The Rebellion of Margaret

"I AM GOING FOR A WALK INTO THE TOWN," SHE SAID SHYLY.

The girl raised her eyes again with some impatience. She had obviously thought the incident closed, and she made reply as shortly as she could that it was not usually considered safe to leave luggage in waiting-rooms.

"Then what ought I to do with it, please?" said Margaret.

"Why, put it in the cloakroom of course," returned the other, and this time her irritation at this continued interruption was so unmistakable that Margaret, blushing crimson, grasped the unlucky bag and fairly fled out of the waiting-room, without, as she contritely remarked afterwards, a word of thanks or apology.

Having safely deposited the bag in the cloakroom, she set out for her walk. As she passed the window of the waiting-room she could see the girl she had left there sitting at the table turning the leaves of a book with one hand and scribbling hurriedly with the other.

"She's looking up words in a dictionary," Margaret said to herself, who knew the signs of the occupation only too well. "And that is what I shall be doing to-morrow. But I am not going to think of that now."

The walk on the whole was not fraught with much enjoyment. Carden, though a junction of some importance, was nothing much in the way of a town, the streets near the station were narrow and crowded, the shops poor, and Margaret was not sorry when her stroll was cut short by a few heavy drops of rain. It would be much more interesting, she thought, to go back to the waiting-room and look at the girl who was doing exercises there. Perhaps, though on that point Margaret was not very hopeful, she might even talk to her presently. So she hurried back and reached the shelter of the station only just in time to escape a heavy shower.

The girl was still seated at the table, and she did not even raise her head as Margaret entered. With a fresh access of shyness Margaret avoided looking at her, but walking to the window stared out at the rain. But as a shower was a phenomenon with which she was familiar, and the near presence of another girl was not, Margaret very soon shifted her position so that she could without turning her head, and unobserved as she thought, study the girl at her leisure.

She was wearing a skirt of some rough frieze, and the colour, a sort of dull turquoise, suited her admirably. A white cotton shirt with a collar and tie completed her attire, while a short coat of the same material as her skirt was flung carelessly over the back of her chair. As Margaret looked at her she became absorbed in speculation as to who the girl might be, and where she was going. Was she on her way home, or was she going to stay with friends? Then Margaret fell to admiring the vivid colour of her hair, which was full of lights and shades. Just above her ears and her temples it shone like vivid gold, but the coils behind were of a deep, rich chestnut colour, with an inclination to merge into gold at their tips. Her eyebrows and eyelashes were just a couple of tones deeper than the darkest shade of her hair, and Margaret felt glad of that as their owner doubtless was also. She liked her nose, too—it was short and straight.

"Do you think you will know me again?"

The girl had not raised her head or even lifted her eyes from the pages of the dictionary she was fluttering with her left hand, while the other, poised over the book, was held in readiness to pounce down on the right page directly it came uppermost.

Margaret gave a great start as the nonchalantly uttered question broke the silence of the room, and she looked round to see if there was any one else present, for the question seemed to be addressed to no one in particular, certainly not to her. And yet as there was no one else in the room, of course the question must have been meant for her.

"Oh, yes, I am sure I shall," she answered in a tone of such pleased conviction that the girl looked up and gave her a quick, puzzled glance. But no one could meet Margaret's candid eyes and suspect her of wishing to be rude, and after a moment's scrutiny the girl's frowning brows relaxed and she smiled—such a merry, amused smile, that the last vestige of Margaret's shyness disappeared on the spot.

"You see," she said, "you are the first girl I have ever spoken to in all my life, and so, of course, I should always remember you."

"The first girl you have ever spoken to!" ejaculated the other, her eyes opening to their fullest width. "Oh, come, I can't believe that."

"But you are, that is to say, the very, very first real girl."

The emphasis Margaret laid on the word "real" did not at the moment strike the other, who was now quite as interested in Margaret as the latter was in her.

"Look here," she said, "I don't think I can do any more exercises at present, though it seems wicked waste of time to be talking when I might be learning something. But my poor brain has taken in all it can at present, and I am willing to rest it awhile by talking to you. Come here and sit down, and we'll talk."

"I have been desirous of talking to you some moments past," said Margaret, flushing with pleasure at the suggestion. "But you looked so busy that I did not venture to interrupt you."

An involuntary smile crossed the other girl's face as she listened to Margaret's prim little way of speaking.

"I know, and I was rather cross about the bag, wasn't I? but I had just got hold of the tail of a rather difficult sentence and it gave a wriggle and vanished when you spoke. However, please don't look so dreadfully sorry. I made a successful grab at it a few minutes afterwards. Now shall we tell each other our names. Mine is Eleanor——"

She stopped short in amazement, for Margaret had sprung to her feet and was gazing at her with eyes that fairly shone with excitement.

"Eleanor!" she cried, "Eleanor! Oh, no, not really and truly!"

"Why not? Don't you like the name?"

"Like it! Why, of course I am very, very fond of it. It is the name of some one I love very much. I suppose your other name is not Humphreys, is it? But it would be really too much if it were."

"It's not. Eleanor Kathleen Carson is my full name."

"Eleanor Kathleen Carson," repeated Margaret when her excitement had calmed somewhat.

"It's a lovely name, though, of course, it ought by rights to have been Eleanor Humphreys. I know now the reason why I liked you so much the moment I saw you."

"Not the first moment," said Eleanor, with twinkling eyes. "You thought me horrid the first moment you saw me, and scuttled from the room as hard as you could."

"No, I liked you from the first," Margaret repeated firmly. "Only I was shy. It was very stupid of me," she added, partly to herself, "to be shy of you when your name was Eleanor all the time."

"And who is this Eleanor of whom you appear so fond?" demanded Miss Carson. "To begin with, you tell me that I am the very first girl you have ever spoken to, and then that you have a friend called Eleanor. Pray explain the discrepancy in these statements."

But Margaret, looking at the laughing light in the curious red-brown eyes bent upon her, shook her head.

"I believe you would laugh at the other Eleanor," she said, "so I don't think I shall tell you. But I will tell you my name. It is Margaret Anstruther."

"And where do you live, Margaret Anstruther?"

"At Clayton, in Flatshire, with my grandfather."

"And have you any brothers and sisters, Margaret Anstruther?"

"No."

"And no friends, you said?"

"No."

"Where were you educated, Margaret Anstruther?"

"At home, with a governess. Her name was Miss Bidwell. She went away to Germany three months ago, because her eyes were causing her grave trouble, and it may be necessary for her to have an operation."

"Since when you have been alone with your grandfather?"

"Yes."

"You seem to have led a very quiet life. Was your governess clever, and were you an industrious child, and loved your lessons?"

"She was very clever, and I was very industrious," smiled Margaret, who was thoroughly enjoying this string of half banteringly put questions. "But I did not love my lessons."

"Lazy, Margaret Anstruther? Why not?"

"I do not know; I do not think I was lazy. Miss Bidwell would not have permitted me to be so, but she made everything seem rather dull."

"What did that matter? You had a chance of learning things," said Eleanor. The mocking note had gone from her voice, which had become very earnest. "Apparently you had nothing to do all day long but learn, learn, learn. Lucky, lucky girl, and yet you say everything seemed dull. Would that I could have changed places with you sometimes."

"I am sure the arrangement would have pleased me also," said Margaret. "But I do not think you would have liked it. As soon as Miss Bidwell saw that I was growing too fond of one subject it was her habit to discontinue my study of it, until she saw that my interest in it was less strong."

"But what an extraordinary governess!" exclaimed Eleanor. "What on earth made her behave like that?"

"My grandfather had given strict orders that I was not to be allowed to become too absorbed in any particular study. He did not want me to neglect one thing in favour of another."

"But just to take a nice, lukewarm, lady-like interest in all of them," said Eleanor. "I see. But please go on, and tell me some more about yourself. Where are you off to now, and why?"

"I am going to a place called Windy Gap, near Chailfield. At least Chailfield is the name of the station. Windy Gap is a little village four or five miles off, and right on the top of the downs."

"And I am going to Seabourne, which is about three or four miles away from Windy Gap, on the other side," said Eleanor. "How very funny!"

"I think it is very pleasant to hear that you are going to be so close to me," said Margaret rather shyly. "Perhaps we shall see each other sometimes."

Eleanor shook her head. "I, for one, shall have no time for visiting," she said, "as you will understand when it comes to my turn to tell you about myself. But we will finish with you first. Why are you going to Windy Gap?"

"My grandfather thought I was not very well, for one day he found me talking in the wood to myself and wishing for all sorts of parties, and so he sent for a doctor, who said I must go away for a long change; and so grandfather wrote to Mrs. Murray, an old friend of his who lives at Windy Gap, and asked her if she would have me on a visit."

"And didn't you nearly go off your head with delight when she said she would?"

"No," said Margaret, with a little sigh, "for my mode of life there will be very much the same as it has always been at home. Lessons all day long, and no one to speak to."

"But there will be your hostess at least," said Eleanor encouragingly. "Come, Margaret, do not despair."

"But she is deaf," said Margaret, in the same melancholy tone. "And I believe she is also very severe. But," brightening, "I am not going to think about her now, for I have got you to talk to for another hour. It's just one o'clock, and my train does not go until seventeen minutes past two."

"The 2.17 is my train too," said Eleanor. "But what do you say to having lunch now. I am getting hungry."

She produced a little paper bag from the basket in which she carried her books, and offered one of the two buns the bag contained to Margaret. But the latter suddenly remembered that the housemaid Lizzie, in spite of the confusion that had reigned in the kitchen regions since Mrs. Parkes had been laid low, had found time to pack up an excellent little lunch for her.

"It is in the bag you told me to put in the cloakroom," she said. "If you do not mind very much, would you be so kind as to come and help me to get it out. I do not like going there alone."

"What! are you shy?" said Eleanor, with considerable amusement, and to herself she wondered why her grandfather had let such a very inexperienced girl as this travel alone. But in spite of Margaret's shyness Miss Carson felt quite interested in her new acquaintance. There was a serious, old-fashioned air about her that made her unlike any other girl that Miss Carson had ever met, and, as it was shortly to transpire, she had known a great many, and was therefore competent to give an opinion on that point. Margaret's very speech was different to that of other girls. It was so slow and careful, and she appeared to phrase her sentence with a deliberation that Miss Carson found both quaint and pleasing. Decidedly, she thought, this chance acquaintance was worth passing the next hour or so with, if only for the sake of the secret amusement she was affording her, and so, at Margaret's timid request, she rose willingly enough and accompanied her to the cloakroom. Then, having recovered the bag, they returned to the waiting-room, which they were glad to find was still unoccupied by any one else.

Inside the bag there was a tin biscuit-box, the contents of which, when spread out on the table, made quite a tempting-looking lunch. There were chicken and tongue sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, covered jam puffs, grapes, raisins, and almonds, and a bottle of delicious home-made lemonade.

In her determination that Miss Margaret's holiday should begin pleasantly with a good luncheon on the journey, Lizzie had put up enough for two persons at least.

"Perhaps," said Margaret gleefully, when she had persuaded Eleanor to abandon her buns and to share this sumptuous meal, "she knew that I should meet a friend. Do you know," she added, "that this is the very first picnic I have ever attended in my life, though I have read of them, of course, in books."

ELEANOR CARSON

A picnic! Eleanor was conscious of a sudden feeling of pity for her newly made acquaintance. She called this meal, partaken of in the dusty, dingy little waiting-room of a noisy junction in company with a girl whom an hour ago she had never met, a picnic.

Memories of gay, delightful river picnics, of mountain picnics, of picnics in ruined castles shared with numerous boy and girl friends flashed through Eleanor's mind. And this girl whose lot she had found it in her heart to envy a short time back had known none of these things.

"And had I not met you," Margaret was saying confidingly when Eleanor came out of the sombre mood into which she had suddenly fallen, "I should never have had the courage even to open my lunch, at least I could not have eaten it in a railway carriage with every one staring at me. Could you have eaten your lunch under such circumstances?"

"Oh, yes, I think I could," Eleanor returned with some amusement.

Probably their ages were very much the same, but what a child Margaret was compared to her! To make up for that, however, she certainly used much longer words.

"How did your grandfather come to allow you to travel alone?" she asked suddenly. "From what you have told me about him I should have thought it was the very last thing he should have allowed you to do."

"He was very reluctant to give me permission to travel without an escort," Margaret answered, "but he was unable to avoid doing so." And then she related how the housekeeper who was to have brought her had broken her leg, and how a sudden epidemic of scarlet fever in the village had made it advisable for her departure not to be delayed.

"Of course," she added, "my grandfather was not aware that I should miss the train and be obliged to wait here, or else I am quite sure he would not have allowed me to come by myself. But please, please do not let us talk about me any longer. I want to hear about you now and, except that your name is Eleanor Kathleen Carson, I do not know anything at all about you."

"There is not much to tell," returned Eleanor; "and what there is is not particularly interesting; but fair is fair, as the children say. Know, then, to begin with, that I have even fewer relations in the world than you, for I have none at all."

"None!" Margaret exclaimed incredulously. "Then with whom do you live? Where is your home?"

"I have no home. I have been earning my living for the last three years," Eleanor answered.

"Earning your own living. But are you not too young to do that? In what manner do you earn it?"

"As a governess. I have been an instructor of the young for the last four years," Eleanor said, laughing a little at the expression of boundless amazement which this statement brought to Margaret's face. Indeed, for a moment the latter suspected her new acquaintance of joking. She found it hard to believe that a girl of her own age should actually be a governess. She had thought that all governesses were of Miss Bidwell's age, and like her, too, in appearance.

"I wish you had been my governess, then," she said earnestly.

"It would have been rather a farce if I had been," Eleanor retorted, "for I have an idea that you know very much more than I do; not that that would be difficult, for I know nothing. Listen, now, and I will tell you all about myself. I am Irish. My father died when I was four, and two years later my mother married again."

"Oh!" said Margaret, with intense interest and sympathy in her voice; "and then they cast you adrift to earn your own living?"

"No," said Eleanor, with some amusement in her voice, "they did nothing of the sort. Besides, you can't very well cast a small person of six adrift, as you call it, to earn her own living. On the contrary, my stepfather was as kind to me as if I had been his own child, and I could not have loved him more if he had been my own father whom I scarcely remember. We were so happy together, we three. My stepfather just adored my mother, she worshipped him, and they both spoiled and petted me. My stepfather was a very rich man. He was English, I must tell you, but he had come to Ireland on a visit, and there it was he met my mother; and to please her when they were married he bought a lovely estate in Kerry, which was her county, and became an Irishman, as he used to say. Until I was fifteen I did exactly as I liked all day. I rode, of course, and hunted, and lived an outdoor life, and though I had a governess and was supposed to do lessons occasionally, it was only very occasionally that I showed my nose in the schoolroom. And then, when I was fifteen, our happy life came to an end. One morning my stepfather got a letter at breakfast to say that the solicitor who had charge of all his money had committed suicide two or three days before, and that it had been found that he had made away with huge sums belonging to his clients. We were absolutely ruined.

"The news was such an awful shock to my stepfather that it brought on an attack of the heart, to which he was subject, and he died that night; and my mother died a few weeks later. She could not, she told me, face life without him, and she pined away and died simply of a broken heart."

Eleanor's voice had become rather husky as she spoke the last few sentences, but she did not cry, she only sat and stared rather fixedly at the various timetables with which the table was strewn.

Margaret put out her hand and touched her timidly on the arm, and the silent token of sympathy pleased Eleanor who could not have borne her to have spoken just then.

There was a moment or two of silence, during which the rain splashed steadily, drearily against the dusty window panes. It had settled now into a thoroughly wet afternoon, and there seemed very little prospect of its clearing before nightfall.

"I have often wondered since what would have become of me then," Eleanor resumed after those few moments of silence, "had it not been for Miss McDonald. She was an old governess of my mother's and had a girls' school in Hampstead, and when she heard how I was left she wrote and offered me a home with her until I was old enough to earn my own living. I was to be a sort of pupil teacher, if you know what that means—to do lessons with the elder girls and to teach the younger ones—and in that way my services were supposed to pay for my board and teaching. But I am quite sure that at first, at any rate, Miss McDonald was a loser by the transaction. I was woefully ignorant to begin with, and knew scarcely more than a child of nine, and I was so miserable that I did not care what became of me or what I did. Looking back now on that time I see that Miss McDonald was wonderfully kind and patient, and that it was for my own good that she insisted upon my working. But for a long time I don't suppose there was a more unhappy girl in the whole of England than myself. I hated England and the school and everything, and, of course, it was a tremendous contrast to my former life, for it wasn't even as though the school were a good school; it was quite second class, and the girls were hopelessly common. And then all of a sudden consolation came to me, and poor little drudge of a pupil teacher that I was, snubbed by the elder girls and bored to death by the younger ones, I became happy again, though in quite a different way to any happiness I had ever known before."

"How?" said Margaret, who had been listening to this narrative with parted lips and eager eyes.

After this, Eleanor Humphreys' conversation would seem tame indeed, for at the bottom of her heart Margaret knew that, pretend to the contrary as much as she liked, nothing that Eleanor Humphreys said ever came as a surprise to her! But conversation with this Eleanor was quite another matter. It was impossible to have the least idea beforehand of what she was going to say.

"How?" she asked again, quivering with impatience, for Eleanor, instead of answering her immediately, was looking at her with a teasing smile on her lips evidently enjoying the prospect of keeping her for a moment or two longer on the tip-toe of expectation.

"Well, before I tell you," she said, "I will give you three guesses. Now, put yourself in my place and think what you would have liked to have had happen to you if you had been me."

"I should have liked some kind, lovely lady to have come and adopted me, and taken me away to a beautiful home in the country, where I should have had lots and lots of brothers and sisters," said Margaret, faithful to the idea that the companionship of other young people was the greatest delight a girl of her age could enjoy.

But Eleanor shook her head. "I shouldn't have liked that a bit," she said. "I should have been sure to have quarrelled with a whole ready-made family of brothers and sisters, and they would not have loved me at all, and the kind, lovely lady would have been jolly sorry she ever adopted me, and would have turned me out of her lovely home pretty smartly. Guess again. I can tell you that the good fortune that came to me was ever so much more worth having than being adopted."

"I cannot imagine any occurrence that would have caused me more pleasure," said Margaret in a hesitating fashion. "Was it, perhaps, discovered that the solicitor who lost your stepfather's money had not lost it quite all, and that there was some left for you?

"Better than that," said Eleanor; "much better. Guess again. I forgot to mention that I do get a little money from the wreck of our fortunes, about twenty pounds a year, but I shall never get more than that, and I know it."

"Did some one fall in love with you, then?" said Margaret rather shyly.

"Gracious, no!" said Eleanor. "No men except one or two old professors were ever allowed inside Waterloo House. And if a prince on a coal-black horse, as handsome and as rich as a prince in a fairy tale, had come riding up to the front door, and begged for my hand on bended knee, I would have said 'No, thank you' if by saying 'Yes, please,' I must have lost this wonderful thing that is mine. Have you ever heard of Melba or Patti?"

"Certainly," answered Margaret, rather wondering at the apparently irrelevant turn the conversation had suddenly taken.

"Well, then, in me you behold a future Melba and a Patti rolled into one."

"Do you mean that you are a singer?" asked Margaret.

"A future Melba—Patti—Tetrazzini, I should have said," Eleanor returned gravely. "But I see from your bewildered expression that you haven't very much idea what I am talking about, so I will explain. As a child at home I did not care much about music, chiefly, I think, because I did not want to be made to practice too much, and when I first went to Waterloo House I felt I liked it still less. The pianos there were mostly cracked and old, the girls, very few of whom had a note of music in their composition, thumped them all day long until I grew fairly sick of the sound, and as I had to superintend the practising of the younger ones, you may guess how much I enjoyed myself. But last Christmas holidays, during which I was left by myself as usual, for Miss McDonald always went away for a change, and she was so delicate, poor thing, that unless she had gone away to the country or to the seaside two or three times a year she could never have got through the terms, I took to practising a good deal. It may sound horribly conceited, but I fell in love with my own voice on the spot, and there, in the cold drawing-room, I used to sit and sing all sorts of rubbishy, sentimental songs until my voice was husky with mingled emotion and fatigue. Then I thought I would go to a few concerts and find out if any of the great singers had such a lovely voice as mine."

"And had they?" queried Margaret, as Eleanor, who had been talking at a great rate, paused for breath.

"Had they?" repeated Eleanor with a little laugh. "They had. I came home that evening quite out of love with my own voice, and before those holidays were over I spent my half-yearly allowance, which I had only just got, as well as my last quarter's salary, in tickets for concerts and operas. It was the best time I had had since I left Ireland. In the afternoons and evenings I used to go to concerts, and the mornings I spent practising. But I gave up the songs and went in for scales only, and I could hear my voice improving every day. I longed for some one who really knew to tell me if my voice was any good, but I didn't know who to ask. Miss Marvel, the school singing mistress, had no more voice than a mouse, and what was worse, no ear. She would let a whole class sing out of tune and never turn a hair. She did not like me because I had once pointed this out to her, and I knew that if I asked for her opinion of my voice she would only run it down. Then a daring idea came to me. Can you guess what it was?"

"No, I cannot," said Margaret quickly, warned by her last experiment, "I have never been taught to guess. Please continue."

"Very well," said Eleanor, smiling a well-pleased smile, for Margaret's impatience was a tribute to the interest she was imparting to her tale. "Have you ever heard of Signor Vanucci? No," as Margaret shook her head. "He was one of the greatest singing masters in London, and a professor of I don't know how many academies and schools of music in London. My great idea was to go straight to him and to ask him if he would hear my voice, and tell me if it was worth training. And on the very last day of the holidays, when I had only about enough money left to pay my fare into town and back, I went to his house. The servant didn't want to admit me when she heard I had no appointment, but I told her what I wanted, and begged so hard that she hadn't the heart to refuse, although she told me that she would be pretty sure to get into trouble afterwards with her master. But I don't believe he was cross with her, for he was a dear old man, and didn't look as though he could be angry with any one. Of course, I began by apologising for having ventured to come, and said I was afraid he must be very much astonished at my having dared to do such a thing as to force my way into his house. He looked at me quite gravely, and said, did I think, then, that I was the first young lady who had conceived the idea of coming to him to be told whether her voice was most like Patti's or Melba's. I said I had thought so; and then he said that I was the nine-hundredth-and-thirty-seventh that week. 'And Martha lets them all in, every one,' he said, with such a comical look of despair that I could not help laughing outright. 'And she thinks that I have only to hear them sing, and they straightway become famous on the spot. Well, well,' he went on, 'you did not come here to hear me talk, but to listen to yourself singing, is it not so? There is the piano. Take your seat. Where are your songs?'"

"And then he yawned, and walked away to the window, and stood there humming a little tune. I could see that he was already getting tired of me, and sorry that he had let me in, and though the thought that he was looking upon me as an awful nuisance would have made me awfully nervous if I had let it, I just said to myself, 'here is your opportunity, seize it. What does it matter about any one else?' And I sat down and sang a scale, beginning with the lowest note I could manage, and going up, up, up, and ending with a long shake on the two top notes."

"Bravo! bravo!" he said when I had finished, and he was no longer standing at the window humming a tune, but he was at my side clapping his hands and patting my shoulder. "Do you know," Eleanor said, her eyes aglow with triumph at the recollection of that moment, "I had come in hoping that he would give me five minutes of his time, and he kept me for an hour, although two pupils were waiting for him in the ante-room."

"And what did he say?" queried Margaret, with an interest that was positively breathless.

Eleanor suddenly sprang to her feet and began restlessly to pace the room. The glow of triumph had faded from her face, and had been replaced by a look of impatient despair that was almost fierce in its intensity.

"Oh, I can't bear to think of what he said!" she burst out. "I feel as though I should go wild sometimes when I remember, when I know that I have a gift which is given to few, and that it is wasted on me, locked away, unless—for do you know what Signor Vanucini said to me?" she asked, coming to an abrupt pause by the table. "He told me that I ought to be the greatest singer of my generation, that he foresaw a splendid future before me, that my voice had infinite possibilities, but that, of course, it was utterly untrained, and that years of hard work and study lay in front of me. That I must work, and work, and learn, and learn, and above all have the best training from the first. And then he said that I had better enter my name as a student at one of the colleges where he was a professor, and that he himself would give me lessons. And, oh! the bitterness of the moment when I had to say that I had no money, no friends to pay for my education, and that I was earning my living as a pupil teacher in a third-rate school in the suburbs. Do you know he seemed almost as much upset as I was. He said it was a great pity, that a voice like mine ought not to be thrown away, and he asked me a lot of questions about Miss McDonald and the school. Did I think she would continue to let me live with her, and come up to town three or four times a week, and he would give me lessons for nothing. I said I was afraid not, for I knew the school was in rather low water, and that Miss McDonald, so far from being able to keep me for nothing, had dismissed the junior governess, and that I was to fill the vacant post.

"'Nevare mind,' he said, 'we vill find ze way. I, Giorgi Vanucci, to you make ze assurance.'

"Then he took down my name and address very carefully in a note-book and sent me away. I was so excited that I walked the whole way from Berners Street to Hampstead, and felt all the time not as though I were walking on hard pavement, but as though I were treading on air. I knew from his manner that Signor Vanucci meant to help me, and that it would be all right for me to accept his kindness, for I could pay him back afterwards when I became a famous singer. The next day Miss McDonald came back, and the day after the girls returned, and the old, dull, insufferably stupid round began again. But all the time I was thinking, 'This won't last long for me; in a few days Signor Vanucci will write and tell her the wonderful news about me.' Miss McDonald noticed how happy I was, and told me that she was glad that I was at last showing more interest in my work as a teacher. 'For, my dear,' she said, rather sadly, 'it is no use your quarrelling with your bread-and-butter. You may not like teaching, but it appears to me the only opening possible to you.' I only laughed and danced about the room and hugged her. Wait, I thought, until that letter comes from Signor Vanucci, and you will see that you will be nothing to the man who cut bread-and-butter with a razor, for you will have been guilty of the enormity of setting a Melba and a Patti down to teach children their Sol-re-fa.

"But that letter never came; and about ten days later I knew why, for I saw in the papers that the famous musician, Signor Vanucci, had been knocked down by a motor-car when crossing a street near his house, and though not much injured, had died a few hours after from the shock."

"And what did you do?" asked Margaret, feeling very much inclined to cry when she heard how Eleanor's high hopes had thus been laid low.

"Do?" said Eleanor sadly; "there was nothing to be done. I grieved for the dreadfully sudden death of the old man, and I shall never forget his kindness, and I shall always feel as grateful to him as though he had lived to carry out his generous intentions towards me. But, of course, his death was an awful disappointment.

"All my hopes of getting my voice trained vanished, and it seems as if what Miss McDonald said were true, and that I have no chance of being anything but a teacher all my life. To have had so much almost in my grasp, and then to have had it snatched away, was rather hard luck," she ended gloomily. "However, I simply would not let myself despond. For one thing, I hadn't time; I was being worked to death. One or two of the governesses were down with influenza, including the music mistress, and I took her singing class, and, I promise you, I made them sit up. I told them I had never yet heard them sing five consecutive bars in tune, and then I imitated them in rather an exaggerated way, and even the big ones who adored Miss Marvel and detested me could not help laughing. But on the whole I was glad when Miss Marvel was well again and could take over her own class, and within two days they were singing as flat as ever. Then I filled up any spare moments I had during the day by studying on my own account. One of the things Signor Vanucci had impressed on me was that if I wanted to be a great artist instead of merely being a great singer, I must not be content with training my voice only, but must educate my mind, and that nothing in the way of learning would ever come amiss, for I could put it all in my music. So though I could not get the singing lessons I pined for, I remembered his advice and set to work to learn all I could. Among other things, he had asked me if I knew Italian, and had seemed sorry when I said 'No, and very little French or German either.' So as a beginning I bought an Italian grammar and a dictionary, and started to study the language. There they are now," she said, nodding towards the two books with which she had been so busy a short time before. "It is wonderful what a lot one can get done in odd moments, if," she added with a smile, "one is not led away to waste one's time, and other people's too, by detailing to them at great length one's life's history."

"You know you are not wasting my time," Margaret replied with great earnestness, "and I am most grateful to you for telling me about yourself. I shall never, never forget it or you," she added wistfully; "but I shall remember every word you have said, long after you have forgotten you ever met me."

"But I am not going to forget you either," Eleanor said, and was touched to see the quick look of almost pathetic gratitude that sprang to Margaret's face at this answer. "You mustn't go away with the idea that I tell everybody I meet about myself. You may not believe it after the way I have taken you into my confidence, but you are the very first person to whom I have ever mentioned my home or my parents since I said good-bye to Ireland six years ago, and that you are the only person in the whole wide world who knows of my visit to Signor Vanucci and what he told me, for I have kept that a secret from every one. I could not even bring myself to tell Miss McDonald about it—not that she would have been unsympathetic, but simply because it was such a bitter disappointment that I could not have borne to hear it discussed. Besides, she could not, however willing to do so, have helped me in any way. I told you the school was in low water. It had not been paying properly for some time, and that term Miss McDonald decided that unless she got a great many more pupils at Easter she would give it up altogether at the end of the summer term.

"Well, at Easter no fresh pupils applied to come, and so many left that scarcely any remained in the school. I don't know what poor Miss McDonald would have done, for I don't think she had saved much money, if a brother that she had not seen for years had not written from Australia to say that after many years of struggling he was now a rich man, and that he hoped she would go out there and make her home with him. And she sailed for Melbourne last week."

MARGARET AND ELEANOR CHANGE PLACES

"Miss McDonald sailed for Australia last week!" ejaculated Margaret in the utmost astonishment. "But what is to become of you, then? Are you quite alone?"

"Quite," responded Eleanor, for whom her solitary state evidently possessed no terrors, for she smiled at Margaret's horrified tone. "Dear old Miss McDonald! If I would have consented, she would have taken me with her, I think, and chanced her brother's dismay when we got there. She was dreadfully distressed at the idea of leaving me behind; but what could she have done for me if she had remained? As I told her, she had done more for me than any one could possibly have expected of her, in keeping me, and giving me what education I possess, during the last six years. And it is not as if I had lost my situation through her going away either, for I have been left as a legacy to Miss Marvel. Miss Marvel bought the goodwill of the school," she added, seeing that Margaret had not quite understood her last remark, "and she has promised to keep me on as junior governess, as long as I do my work well, of course, and wish to stay."

"And do you wish to stay there?" Margaret asked.

"Did you ever hear that beggars can't be choosers?" Eleanor said, with rather a wry little smile. "I should not wish to stay in any school as a teacher if I could avoid such a fate, but I can't; and I am at least sensible enough to be thankful that my bread-and-butter, and a roof over my head, and a bed, and a few other little trifles of that sort are provided for me. And before she went, Miss McDonald did me another kind turn. Up to the present I have always spent my holidays in Hampstead, but this year she wrote to a cousin of hers who lives in Seabourne and asked her if she would have me down on a visit, and the cousin wrote back such a nice letter, saying she had just been on the point of advertising for some one who would come to her for the whole of the summer holidays, and make herself useful and help look after the children, and have a good time with the elder ones. The letter was a little vague, and so Miss McDonald thought as she read it out to me, for it did not give me much idea of what I was to do. But probably she wants some one to arrange the flowers, and write notes, and so on, and take the children down on the beach and that sort of thing."

"Oh, but how lovely for you!" Margaret said, with a touch of envy in her voice. "I wonder how many children there will be, and if there will be any nice girls of your own age among them. And what delightful picnics, and tennis parties, and excursions you will enjoy!"

"Yes, I suppose so," said Eleanor, without the slightest enthusiasm in her voice. "But Mrs. Danvers, for that is the name of the lady, said I must be prepared to find my days fairly well occupied, and must not mind having scarcely any time to myself."

"Why, it is just the kind of life that I should have enjoyed so much," Margaret said, with a tremendous sigh. "People to talk to and to play with all day long. It does seem odd that you are not anticipating it with any pleasure, Eleanor."

"It is not only funny, it is, I know, very ungrateful," Eleanor said, with sudden energy. "But, oh!" she added, "I don't want to play or to talk. I want to work, work, work, and become great and famous. But at least I can get up early. The morning hours, the ones before breakfast, will at least be my own, and I can study for three or four hours every morning before I go down to breakfast."

"Yes, and you could practice your singing then," said Margaret.

"What! and wake the whole family up. I expect that would be as much as my place was worth," laughed Eleanor. She paused and sighed, while a shadow chased the brightness from her face. "I try and cheat myself into the belief that I am going to enjoy myself at Seabourne," she broke out as she resumed her restless march up and down the room; "and that I shall love being near the sea and near real country again. And so I shall enjoy that part. But all the time deep down inside me I am just miserable at the thought that I am wasting time that can never, never come back to me. It does seem hard to think that there are hundreds and hundreds of girls all over England who are getting splendid musical educations that will never be the least little bit of use to them, while my voice is being thrown away for want of training. I tell you, Margaret, I feel sometimes as if it simply did not bear thinking about. A splendid, interesting career, bringing fame and fortune with it, lies waiting for me on the other side, as it were, of a deep gulf. The gulf can only be crossed by the bridge of training, and I haven't the money to pay the toll."

She flung herself with an air of gloomy impatience on the nearest chair, and, putting her elbows on the table, propped her chin on her palms and stared with a frown at the empty fireplace opposite to her.

For a moment or two Margaret did not speak, but stole anxious glances at the sad face of her new acquaintance, whose rapid changes of mood she found it exceedingly difficult to keep pace with. For Eleanor certainly passed with startling quickness from grave to gay, and now, after having dwelt only a few seconds back with obvious delight on the thought of her sojourn by the sea, she was plunged in the blackest depths of despair again. But the truth was that the thought of the glorious gift she so confidently believed was hers, and of which she could make no use, was never absent from Eleanor's mind, and though her natural gaiety and pluck combined enabled her to laugh and talk as though she had not a care in the world, a chance word could always bring the sadness and longing that underlay her laughter to the surface.

"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" sighed Margaret at last, when the silence had lasted so long that she began to fear that Eleanor had forgotten her presence altogether, and would not rouse herself from her reverie until it was time for their train to go. "Oh, dear! what a pity it is that we cannot change our identities! To stay in a big house with people is just what I should like to do, and I believe you would really like staying at Windy Gap and having Italian and singing lessons all day long with an Italian lady."

"Really like," said Eleanor; "that is a mild way of putting it. Why, there is nothing that I should like better, provided, of course, that the Italian lady is a good teacher."

"Oh, yes, I believe she is a good enough teacher. If I recollect aright what my grandfather said to me on the subject, she used to be an opera singer herself once some years ago, but her health broke down and she had to leave the stage. Her name is Madame Martelli."

Scarcely had the last word left her lips than Eleanor, straightening herself with a sudden jerk, gazed with eyes that fairly blazed with excitement at Margaret.

"Martelli!" she exclaimed incredulously. "Not Margherita Martelli!"

"Yes, I am quite sure that was the name, because I thought at the time how very much prettier the Italian way of saying Margaret was than the English. Do you not think so also?"

But Eleanor brushed the inquiry aside as though she had not heard it.

"And to think," she muttered, more to herself than to Margaret, "that she is going to have lessons from Martelli."

"But why not?" said Margaret in a puzzled tone. "Is she not nice? Is she not a good teacher?"

"Nice! A good teacher! Have you never heard of Margherita Martelli?" Eleanor ejaculated in a tone of such unbounded amazement that Margaret began to blush for her own ignorance, and it was in a shame-faced voice that she owned that until the other day when her grandfather had told her that she was to have lessons from a Madame Martelli she had never heard the name.

"Oh, well," said Eleanor, calming down and laughing at her own impetuosity, "now I come to think of it, I was just as ignorant a few months ago, but I was reading the autobiography of a great concert director the other day and in it he speaks of Margherita Martelli and the brief but wonderful career she had. She only sang for two or three years, and had scored triumph after triumph when a sudden illness deprived her of her voice, and she vanished from the stage as suddenly as she had come on to it. I had no idea that she lived in England now or that she gave lessons. Oh, you lucky, lucky girl!" she added, a note of deep, uncontrolled envy in her voice. "Just imagine. You are going to have lessons from Martelli. And you are not out of your mind with joy. What a wicked, wicked waste it is!"

"Is it not?" Margaret agreed, not a whit offended at the frankness of this remark. "I do not wish to learn singing. I know my voice possesses no merit whatever, and, moreover, I am not always sure whether I am singing in tune or not."

"Well, it is something to know you don't know," said Eleanor. "Not every one who sings out of tune could or would own as much. Oh, what a horrible, topsy-turvy world it is, to be sure! Here are you going to have the thing that I covet more than anything else in the whole wide world—singing lessons from a first-rate teacher, which you don't appreciate in the least—and here am I, compelled to waste the whole summer holidays doing nothing. And if you would like to be me, as you say you would, how much more wouldn't I give to be you, if only for a month!"

"Yes," said Margaret, with a long-drawn sigh; "it does seem a matter for considerable regret that we cannot change places, and you be me and I be you. If only a fairy would pass this way and transform us with a waive of her magic wand into each other how much happier we both should be, and how delighted Madame Martelli would be to get you for a pupil instead of me!"

"Don't," said Eleanor, with a little muffled groan. She could not play with the idea as Margaret was doing, her feelings were far too deeply engaged for that.

Margaret sighed again. It distressed her to see any one so unhappy as Eleanor looked at that moment, and she began to realise that her longing for a freer, different life to the one she had hitherto led was but a puny thing when compared to the fierce desire that consumed Eleanor to be given an opportunity to cultivate her voice. If only she could help her in some way. But what could she do? She might ask Mrs. Murray to allow Eleanor to share her lessons, but she was afraid that the request would not be granted. She knew that her grandfather would not allow her to associate with any girl of her own age, certainly not with one whose acquaintance she had made in so casual a manner. And besides, even if her grandfather had done such an unlikely thing as to give his consent to the arrangement, how could Eleanor find the time to come out to Windy Gap for her lessons?

So back again came Margaret to the regret that had been running in her head so long, the regret that she and Eleanor, who were so obviously fitted to lead each other's lives rather than their own, could not change places. Oddly enough, too, if they did change places, no one would be any the wiser. Mrs. Murray had never seen her, and Mrs. Danvers had never seen Eleanor. So if Eleanor went to Windy Gap, and she, Margaret, to Seabourne, their respective hostesses would never suspect the exchange that their guests had effected between themselves.

"Eleanor!" she exclaimed, leaning across the table and speaking in a voice that shook with excitement, "let us do it. Change places, I mean. If you'll be me, I shall be only too pleased to be you. No, don't interrupt," as Eleanor seemed about to speak, "I have thought it all out, and it will be quite easy. Mrs. Murray has never seen me, and Mrs. Danvers has never seen you, so how are they to know that we have changed places?"

"You can't be serious, Margaret, surely," Eleanor said. "It's the most hare-brained suggestion I ever heard."

"Why?" said Margaret.

"Why? Because it is. We should be found out in a day, or a week."

"But who is to find us out?" persisted Margaret. "Mrs. Murray has never seen me, and Mrs. Danvers has never seen you. Why, if they were here now they could not tell which was which. Oh, Eleanor, do go to Windy Gap instead of me, and let me go to your house. Think of the Italian lessons, and the singing lessons. Why, Eleanor, it is the opportunity of your lifetime, it is really. This is probably the turning-point of your whole life? I am surprised that you cannot realise that."

"I do realise it," Eleanor said almost fiercely. "Do you suppose for an instant that I can't see what an opportunity is being offered to me? But what I also see is how very wrong it would be."

"Yes, I suppose it would be rather wrong," Margaret said calmly; "but, after all, we would not be doing any one any harm, and I am so tired of being treated just like a little girl and as though I had no opinions or will of my own."

"Well, I think when your grandfather hears of this escapade he won't be under that delusion concerning you any longer," Eleanor said rather drily.

"Then you will do it?" Margaret cried eagerly. It was her turn now to jump up and pace the room restlessly. "Oh, say quickly you will do it, for I find this suspense very trying. Please, please, Eleanor, do not say No. Just think how dull and dreary my life has always been, and do not deprive me of the chance of having just a little enjoyment like other girls of my age."

The implication that sheer selfishness only made her hold out against this scheme struck Eleanor as being distinctly funny.

"But I don't suppose for a minute there is going to be much enjoyment for me at Seabourne," Eleanor protested. "Mrs. Danvers said I must be prepared to work pretty hard."

"Well, I shall like that as long as it is not lessons," Margaret said quickly. "Why, even to see other people and to watch them, and to listen to them talking will be enjoyment for me. And think of Madame Martelli and the singing lessons."

"I am thinking of them," Eleanor returned desperately, "and I am trying hard not to." Then all of a sudden her resolution gave way. It had been too unequal a fight to last very long, for there were too many forces arrayed against her conscience to give it a fair chance of gaining the day. Margaret's persuasions counted for little really, but the thought of the lessons was, of course, all-powerful with her, and there was, too, a spice of adventure about the scheme that appealed strongly to her high-spirited, mischief-loving nature. "But it's on you that the trouble will fall in the end, Margaret," she warned her. "When we are found out I shall be turned out of the house as an imposter, of course, but that will be all that can happen to me. It's you who will have to bear the brunt of both Mrs. Murray's anger and of your grandfather's."

But be the consequences what they might, Margaret refused to look so far ahead or to consider for a moment the time when the trick they were about to play must inevitably be discovered.

That belonged entirely to the future; it was the present that occupied her mind now, and the keen zest and animation with which she entered into every detail of the scheme, foreseeing and guarding against every obstacle that might wreck it, came as a positive revelation to Eleanor. She could not have believed that Margaret had it in her to plot and plan in such a shrewd, capable manner, and she could only nod her head in acquiescence to most of the suggestions that were made. She was simply swept off her feet by Margaret's impetuosity. And so, carried along by the flood of her eager eloquence and nearly off her head with joy at the intoxicating thought that she was attaining her heart's desire, and that splendid singing lessons were now within measurable distance of her, it was small wonder that her conscience gave up the unequal fight and retired from the field in despair.

"We must change tickets," Margaret announced presently, with the business-like air of one who is determined to overlook no detail, however apparently unimportant, "for you will have to get out at Chailfield, Eleanor, which is three or four stations before we come to Seabourne."

"Very well, yes, I suppose so," Eleanor said somewhat absently. She was deep in consideration as to which opera she should study first with Madame Martelli. The latter would probably wish to take one in which she had scored a success herself, and Eleanor was racking her brain to remember the particular one in which she had read that the gifted singer of past days had made her most signal triumph.

"And oh, Eleanor! what about our clothes? I have never, never thought of them."

There was such a depth of tragic despair in Margaret's voice that it could not but arrest Eleanor's wandering attention.

"Clothes," she said vaguely; "what clothes?"

"Why, our clothes," Margaret said impatiently. "We ought to change them, you know, and you put on mine, and I put on yours."

Eleanor looked at her for a moment with the deep, earnest gaze one unconsciously accords to people whose last remark one ought to have heard but has not. But then, as the meaning of Margaret's speech slowly penetrated to her brain, she smiled, and the smile broadened to a laugh.

"If changing clothes is part of the programme," she said, still laughing, "I'm off. Why, Margaret, how do you suppose I'm going to get into your clothes, and what do you suppose you would look like in mine? Why, I am an inch taller than you are, and broader in proportion. No, we must take our own things and cut the marking out of our linen. None of my underlinen happens to be marked, so that simplifies matters for me."

"But mine all is," Margaret said ruefully; "Mrs. Parkes did it all last week, and would it not look strange if I cut my name out of all my things?"

"Yes, perhaps it would rather," Eleanor said thoughtfully. "I tell you how you must manage. To begin with, don't let a maid do your unpacking for you, and keep everything locked up until you have had time to go out and buy a bottle of marking ink and some block tape. Then mark the tape with your name and sew it over the name on your linen."

"And then," Eleanor pursued, "we must always remember to keep most of our private possessions under lock and key, so that no one reads our real names on any of our books."

"Why, that is just what I have been telling you," said Margaret, "and as a beginning I wrote Margaret Anstruther over the Eleanor Carson on the fly-leaves of your grammar and your dictionary."

"Why, of course, so you did," said Eleanor. "Excuse my apparent inattention. At that moment I was choosing the opera in which I was to make my début, and was trying to decide whether the said début shall take place in London or Paris, or in New York. They do give one such splendid receptions in New York. One thing you may rely on, Margaret, I shall send you tickets. Stall, second row, or would you like a box?"

"Speaking of boxes," said Margaret seriously, "are your name or your initials painted on yours; neither are on mine."

"Nor on mine. My trunk, too, is innocent of any old labels that might betray us."

At that moment a porter opened the door and looked in.

"The 2.17 has just been signalled," he said; "are either of you ladies going by it?"

"We both are," said Eleanor, jumping up briskly and going towards the door. "Porter, our trunks are wrongly labelled. Would you kindly see to it for us. The one that should be labelled to Seabourne is labelled to Chailfield, and vice versâ. I will come and show you. Come along, Margaret, the porter will take your bag."

"I had omitted to take the matter of labels into my consideration," Margaret said, in an undertone, as they followed the man up the platform.

"Well, you needn't reproach yourself over much for that," Eleanor said. "Considering that this is your first attempt at a conspiracy, you make an A1 plotter."

Margaret's answering smile was rather a perfunctory one. She found Eleanor's way of treating the matter as a most excellent jest rather a trying one, and yet she could not but acknowledge that Eleanor's foresight, when she chose to exercise it, was at least equal to her own. For when Eleanor had made sure that the new railway labels were properly affixed she changed their private labels, thus making the transfer of their names complete.

MRS. MURRAY MEETS THE TRAIN

"There," said Eleanor, "the first step is successfully accomplished, and we have taken formal possession of each other's names. Here comes the train. You were travelling first, weren't you? I was third. We had better both go third as far as the station just before Chailfield, and then I will take your ticket and get into a first and make my arrival in state. By the way, did you send a telegram to Mrs. Murray telling her you had missed an earlier train?"

"No," owned Margaret, conscience stricken, "I am afraid the idea that I should do so never occurred to me."

"Very careless of you," commented Eleanor. "Nobody may be at the station to meet me. I treated you much better, for I sent one to Mrs. Danvers. However, the porter will send one for me," and after asking Margaret for Mrs. Murray's address, and the porter for the time at which the train was due at Chailfield, she wrote out the following telegram: "Missed connection at Carden. Arriving Chailfield 7.56. Margaret." This she handed to the porter, asking him to send it off as soon as he had seen them into the train.

"I wonder," she added, as they stood waiting for the train to come in, "how soon we shall get accustomed to our new names. You will probably find that part easier than I shall, for the name of Margaret is quite strange to me, whereas you told me that you had had a great friend called Eleanor, so that the name will have a familiar ring to you at any rate. By the way, you never explained to me how you reconcile the two conflicting statements you made me, for after telling me that you had scarcely ever spoken to a girl in your life, you went on to say that your dearest friend was a namesake of mine."

The two girls had been fortunate enough to secure a carriage to themselves, for very few people were travelling by that slow train, and as soon as the door was shut upon them they settled themselves opposite one another, and Margaret proceeded to give the desired explanation. For, as Eleanor, who to Margaret's relief had now quite emerged from the dreamy mood into which the thought of her future fame had led her, remarked, that if their plans were not to topple ignominously about their ears at the very outset, it was absolutely essential that each should know as much about the other as possible.

And so, though rather reluctantly, Margaret spoke of her dream friend, and of how, since the days of her childhood, she had managed to keep her existence a secret even from her grandfather and her governess until ten days ago, when the former, overhearing her talking to herself in the wood, had suspected the presence of a stranger, and though that had been contrary to his most stringent rules, had not been a whit appeased when he learned that the person to whom his granddaughter was talking was an imaginary one.

Margaret need not have been afraid that Eleanor would pour ridicule on her shadowy friend; on the contrary, the latter was too touched by the picture of the lonely life the other must have led even to smile.

"It really is quite a coincidence that my name is Eleanor, too," she remarked thoughtfully, "and I am not altogether sure that the name is a fortunate one for you. You see, the first Eleanor ended by getting you into fairly hot water, and the second Eleanor, which is me, is in a fair way to do likewise. But I am glad you told me about the first Eleanor. As she played such an important part in your life it would never have done for me to have been in complete ignorance of her existence. Now this is how I propose we should employ the next half-hour or so. Have you got a sheet of paper and a pencil? No," as Margaret shook her head. "Well, I can supply you with both articles. Little did I think," she added, as she tore a couple of sheets out of her exercise book, and giving one to Margaret, kept the other for herself, "even in my wildest dreams that the innocent pages of my copy-book would ever be put to such a purpose as this. I am going to write down a list of the things about myself that you ought to know, and I want you to do the same about yourself. Little things which we would probably forget if we told them to one another, but which it may prove very useful to have jotted down so that we can refer to it in case of need. You might write down the date of your birthday, for instance, your grandfather's, if you know it, and give me a short description of your house, how many bedrooms it has, and so on, and how many servants, their names, the name of your clergyman, and the church, the doctor, any people you know by sight or by name; your governess's name, how long she was with you, why she left, and how you spent your days, and any little things of that sort. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I think I do," Margaret said, "for I can see how awkward it would be if Mrs. Murray asked you any of these things and you could not answer."

"And on my side," said Eleanor, "I shall write you a short description of the school, and the names and numbers of the girls, what classes I took, the names of the governesses, and a short description of Miss McDonald's appearance, what she usually wore, where she went for her holidays, and any little details of that sort."

For over half an hour the two girls scribbled away busily, and a good deal more paper had to be torn from the exercise-book before their literary labours were at an end.

Margaret, in addition to her own written hints for Eleanor's guidance, was able to give the latter a folded sheet of notepaper which her grandfather had ordered her to convey to Mrs. Murray. On one side of it was carefully written out a table of the hours of study which Margaret had been accustomed to observe hitherto, and on the other he had sketched a plan of the way in which he wished her days to be filled while she was with Mrs. Murray. Eleanor was pleased to observe that by far the greater part of the day was to be spent with Madame Martelli, and though the study of Italian occupied more time than singing, Eleanor was confident that she could soon alter that.

"But I am not at all sure," she said, with a slight grimace, as she read through the list of what Margaret had been used to do, "if I shall be able to maintain your character as easily as I thought. For you are a very learned person, Margaret, and if I am put through an examination as soon as I arrive, I don't know where I shall be. No," as Margaret opened her lips to protest, "I am not fishing. It is a fact that my education is miles behind yours, and I shouldn't be a bit surprised if Mrs. Murray found that out straightaway."

"She will only think that I—that you, I mean—have a very bad memory," Margaret said encouragingly. "Besides, she is deaf, and, from what grandfather said, not very fond of conversation. She will only expect you to say Yes and No to her, for she will know that that was all grandfather expected me to say to him."

"Is that all you were supposed to say to him," Eleanor asked in blank astonishment.

"That is all. Until about a year ago I thought grandchildren and sons and daughters never did say more than that to their parents; but, of course, I know now that they do."

"Well, I should imagine so," Eleanor remarked. "You have been brought up in the style of one hundred years ago, and yet, except for a certain quaintness in your speech, one would not think you very different from any girl brought up in the ordinary way."

"Is my speech quaint?" Margaret asked in dismay.

"It's nothing to worry about," Eleanor said consolingly. "Perhaps it is only because you don't talk a word of slang that your speech sounds a little odd."

"Slang!" said Margaret, only partly relieved. "Is that not what schoolboys talk?"

"Schoolboys and others," said Eleanor, with a laugh. "But don't worry," she added. "It is quite in keeping with your new character as a governess that you should not be slangy, so do not put yourself to the trouble of learning any."

"You have said several things that I did not understand," said Margaret thoughtfully, "were they slang?"

"Very probably; what were they?"

"Oh! I do not know that I can remember them quite all, but you said a minute ago that my education was miles behind yours; what did that mean?"

"Inferior to yours," Eleanor said promptly. "That's hardly slang. It explains itself really, and so you will find with most of the things I have said. But, perhaps, if you hear any expressions of that sort from the young Danvers and don't understand them, it will be better not to ask their meaning. You see, you are supposed to have lived in a girl's school for the last three years and to have all the slang vocabulary at your fingers' ends, so that if you go asking what every common or garden slang expression means you will give us both away with a pound of tea."

"I understand," said Margaret meekly, "and I will not ask." And she made good her promise by forbearing to inquire what "common" or "garden" meant when used in that connection, and what bearing a pound of tea had on the question.

"By the way," said Eleanor, "it has just occurred to me that we ought to keep any photographs we have of our parents safely locked away. I must be especially careful, for Mrs. Murray, as an old friend of your grandfather's, might, if she saw the photographs of my father and mother, recognise the fact that they were not yours."

"The only portraits I have of my father and my mother are contained in this locket," said Margaret, as she drew an old leather case from her bag and pressed the spring. Within lay a dull gold locket richly chased on one side, and having the monogram "M" beautifully worked in seed pearls on the other. Inside were two portraits painted on ivory, one of Margaret's father and one of her mother.

"My mother had these especially painted for me," Margaret said, "but I have never worn the locket. It is too big."

"Yes, it is too big to wear," Eleanor said; "but oh!" as she took the case from Margaret's hand, "what a beautiful string of pearls!"

The locket fitted into a bed on the velvet-lined case, and round it was a circular depression in which a row of pearls lay coiled.

"Yes, that is the chain to wear with the locket," Margaret said. "It is attached to it."

"If it wasn't I should wear the pearls by themselves," Eleanor said, examining them intently. "They are a perfectly lovely row, and must be worth a lot of money. You had better keep this very carefully locked up, Margaret," she said, snapping to the case and handing it back to its owner. "They are hardly the sort of things that a governess would be likely to possess."

"My bag has a very good key," Margaret answered, "so I should always keep it locked and wear the key on my watch-chain."

When Eleanor heard that Margaret had never been to London, and had only the very vaguest idea of what Hampstead, where she was supposed to have lived for the last six years, was like, she had given vent to a low whistle expressive of despair. And as their time together was now drawing short she felt that it would be better to give Margaret a verbal description of that suburb rather than attempt to write one out for her. So as hurriedly as she could she told Margaret as much about Hampstead as she could think of on the spur of the moment. Margaret listened attentively, and as she had naturally an excellent memory, which had been trained to a marvellous pitch of perfection by Miss Bidwell, she found no difficulty at all in committing to heart almost every word that Eleanor uttered on the subject.

The train was running now through exceedingly pretty scenery, but neither of the two girls had any attention to spare for it; every minute of their time was occupied in endeavouring to make themselves as perfect as possible in their new characters. But at last when a long, undulating range of distant blue hills turned themselves slowly into green downs, and instead of occupying the horizon only, filled the middle distance entirely, leaving a foreground of flat green fields between themselves and the train, Eleanor, glancing out of the window, gave it as her opinion that they must be fairly close to Chailfield now, and that at the next station she would change into a first-class carriage.

The rain had long since ceased, and the sun, as it sank towards the range of hills that rose against the western sky, was shining brilliantly out of a mass of gorgeously hued clouds. As it turned out, however, Eleanor had no chance to change into a first-class carriage, for as the train slowed down and ran into the little country station they were approaching, she saw that they had actually arrived at Chailfield.

Both girls gave a little gasp of dismay. Neither had realised that the moment for parting was so near, and now that it was actually upon them, both of them were conscious of a distinct feeling of nervousness which perceptibly increased, especially on Eleanor's part, when she saw that a lady who could be none other than Mrs. Murray had come down to meet the train, for outside the paling that separated the road from the platform a low pony-carriage drawn by two fat black ponies was waiting, and in it was seated a somewhat stout elderly lady wearing a very broad-brimmed mushroom hat. She was scanning the carriage windows as the train went slowly past her, but did not appear to see the two girls who, being in the front part, were carried some distance beyond her before the train came to a standstill.