"Never!" said Eleanor with a passionate vehemence that fairly startled Margaret. "Please, please, Margaret, get it out of your head that I am the selfish, hard sort of person you first knew. I shall never forget the girl who helped me out of my shallows and miseries and set me afloat on my full sea. You will only come second in my affections to Mrs. Murray, to whom I shall simply never be able to repay all her kindness and goodness, so if you want to hurt me, Margaret, accuse me again of fickleness and ingratitude."
"But I don't wish to hurt you," Margaret protested. "You know, Eleanor, I am only too pleased to have you for a friend. Let us always be friends, Eleanor dear."
"We always will," Eleanor declared. "It is the fashion to laugh at girls' vows of eternal friendship. I laughed at them myself, you know, for have I not lived four years in a girls' school! But no one need trouble to laugh at our vows, Margaret, for I know you to be a faithful little soul, and I owe you far too much ever to cease to love you."
THE END.