"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."