"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 pa.s.sed 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 ident.i.ties! 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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 pa.s.s 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 m.u.f.fled 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 a.s.sociate 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."