"And you have come to tell me that you want to change back into your own self?" she said.
"No, not much," Eleanor said hurriedly; "but the point is, do you? She seems to be perfectly charming, and I don't believe she would be very angry. And oh, Margaret! I feel as though I ought not to oust you from house and home in this way."
Margaret's brow cleared as though by magic. It was all right then. Strange though it undoubtedly appeared to her, Eleanor was not only willing but actually eager to go to Windy Gap, and it was only out of motives of unselfishness that she had offered to change into their proper selves.
Briefly, but with all the emphasis of which she was capable, Margaret assured her that such an act of unselfishness would not be appreciated in the least.
"Oh, very well," Eleanor said, much relieved, "and to tell you the truth I think Mrs. Murray would be rather surprised if I were suddenly to return to her and say that I was not Margaret Anstruther but that you were. She would probably end by thinking us both impostors. Well, I must go now; I only came back just to give you the chance of becoming yourself again if you had already repented. Look here, you must let me know how you get on. I shall be quite anxious to know. Will you write? Quick, tell me Mrs. Murray is beckoning."
"I could write, of course," Margaret said cautiously "but you must remember that Margaret Anstruther has never received a letter in her life and that Mrs. Murray might want to see it."
"I shall come in and see you then," Eleanor said.
"Oh, will you?" Margaret said with a smile. "Kindly remember, Miss Margaret Anstruther, that you never took a walk unaccompanied in your life. No, leave it to me, and I will try and come out to Windy Gap one day to see you, for I am free, free, free, and quite grown up, while you are a mere child in the nursery!"
And so, though rather against her will, Eleanor was obliged to leave the matter like that, and saying good-bye to Margaret for the second time she scurried away down the platform.
Margaret watched her step into the pony-carriage, tuck the dust wrap over her knees and over Mrs. Murray's, and then settle herself with an air of obvious enjoyment for her drive. From the window Margaret could see the long, white chalky road that they would traverse to reach Windy Gap, which place doubtless lay to the left beyond the high ridge which shut out all further view of the downs. The road wound its leisurely way between high hedges and green fields, was lost for awhile as it passed behind an outlying spur of the downs, and became visible again as, apparently repenting its former meanderings below, it sternly took the shortest and steepest way possible up the side of the hill, and finally disappeared over the brow. And it might have fallen to her lot to be sitting beside Mrs. Murray and in that little low pony-carriage, and to be driving along that monotonous road to the remote village on the downs instead of to be whirling past them as she did in a train on her way to a houseful of young people. Margaret could have hugged herself with pleasure as she thought of the exchange she had made.