“I am not really melancholy, only I would much rather you had told me openly at the time that you wished me to come to school.”

Maggie gave a faint sigh. “Had I done so, darling,” she said, “you would never have come. You must leave your poor friend Maggie to manage things in her own way. But now I have something else to talk about.”

They had gone far down the glade, and were completely separated from their companions.

“Sit down,” said Maggie; “it’s too hot to walk far even under the shade of the trees.”

They both sat down.

Maggie tossed off her hat. “To-morrow,” she said, “you will perhaps be having another picnic, or, at any rate, the best of good times with your friends.”

“I hope so,” replied Merry.

“But I shall be in hot, stifling London, in a little house, in poky lodgings; to-morrow, at this hour, I shall not be having what you call a good time.”

“But, Maggie, you will be with your mother.”

“Yes, poor darling mother! of course.”