“Oh, dear Maggie!” replied Merry, “you surely must be mistaken.”
“I don’t intend to explain myself,” said Maggie; “I simply state what is a fact. You owe your school-life to me. It was I who inserted the thin end of the wedge beneath your father’s fixed resolution that you were to be educated at home. It was I, in short, who acted the part of the fairy princess and who pulled those silken reins which brought about the desire of your heart.”
“I don’t understand you, Maggie,” said Merry in a distressful tone; “but I suppose,” she added, “as you say so, it is the case. Only, I ought to tell you that what really and truly happened was this”––
“Oh, I know quite well what really and truly happened,” interrupted Maggie. “Let me tell you. I know that there came a certain day when a little girl who calls herself Merry Cardew was very discontented, and I know also that kind Mr. Cardew discovered the discontent of his child. Well, now, who put that discontent into your mind?”
“Why, I am afraid it was you,” said Merry, turning pale and then red.
Maggie laughed. “Why, of course it was,” she said; “and you suppose I didn’t do it on purpose?”
“But, Maggie, you didn’t really mean—you couldn’t for a minute mean—that I was to be miserable at home if father didn’t give his consent?”
“Of course not,” said Maggie lightly; “but, you see, I meant him to give his consent—I meant it all the time. I own that there were several favoring circumstances; but 67 I want to tell you now, Merry, in the strictest confidence of course, that from the moment I arrived at the rectory I determined that you and Cicely were to come with Molly and Isabel to Aylmer House.”
“It was very kind of you, Maggie,” said Merry; but she felt a certain sense of distress which she could not quite account for as she spoke.
“Why do you look so melancholy?” said Maggie, turning and fixing her queer, narrow eyes on the pretty face of her young companion.