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 fe