and had wound up as
suddenly by refusing to consider the future at all.

No wonder, then, that Margaret, with whom speech was never very ready,
felt at a loss what to answer when Eleanor, pausing in her restless march
to and fro, asked her abruptly what she was thinking of.

"You listen, listen, listen always so silently, my little pale Margaret,"
she said, "and you look so grave and so wise, but never a word do you
say."

"It is because you talk so fast and tell me so much that I have not time
to answer one thing before you go on to another," said Margaret.

"Well, you never answered my question just now. Tell me, do you despise
me for my selfishness?"

"No," said Margaret, with sudden earnestness, "I like you too much."

"Really and truly, Margaret?"

"Really and truly," Margaret made reply. "You know I liked you from the
first moment I saw you in the waiting-room. You were the first girl of my
own age that I had ever spoken to, and I shall never forget how I stood
by the window watching you as you did your exercise, and wished you were
my friend."

"And a pretty friend I have been to you," interrupted Eleanor. "I stole
your name and everything that belongs to you, and, by the way, that
reminds me----"

"It was my own wish," said Margaret, interrupting in her turn. "Never
forget that, Eleanor. It was to please myself that I began it."

"But to please me that you went on with it," said Eleanor. "'Although he
promise to his cost he makes his promise good,'" she quoted.

"Yes, perhaps," Margaret admitted; "but now, Eleanor, I am glad to do it
for you, I am indeed. It gives me great pleasure to have a friend, and to
be able to serve her."

An odd, shamed look came for a moment into Eleanor's eyes. "I wish you
had found a better friend for your first one than me," she said; "or
rather," she added ruefully, "I wish that I did wish it, but I don't. So
it's no good pretending. You shall hear me sing one day, Margaret, and
then you will know why it is that my conscience never gets a fair chance
with me. If it talks too loud I just sing it down. But look here,
Margaret, to talk of something else besides my voice for a minute, to
which fascinating subject we always seem to go back, when I said just
now that I had stolen your name and everything that belonged to you it
reminded me that I had also come in for something for which I never
bargained, and that was for an aunt. Did you know that you had an aunt
living n