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Title: The heiress of McGregor

or, Living for self

Author: Lucy Ellen Guernsey

Release date: February 10, 2025 [eBook #75338]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: American Sunday-School Union, 1875

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEIRESS OF MCGREGOR ***

Transcriber's notes: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.

Heiress of McGregor.—Frontispiece.

The prayer meeting.

THE

HEIRESS OF McGREGOR;

OR,

LIVING FOR SELF.

BY

LUCY ELLEN GUERNSEY.

AUTHOR OF

"IRISH AMY," "COMFORT ALLISON," "OPPOSITE NEIGHBOURS,"

"NELLY; OR, THE BEST INHERITANCE," "TWIN ROSES,"

"ETHEL'S TRIAL," "ON THE MOUNTAIN," "RHODA'S EDUCATION,"

"THE TAME TURTLE," ETC.

————————————

PHILADELPHIA:

AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION,

NO. 1122 CHESTNUT STREET.

————————————

NEW YORK: NOS. 8 AND 10 BIBLE HOUSE, ASTOR PLACE.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by the

AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

—————————————————                        ————————————————

WESCOTT & THOMSON                                      HENRY B. ASHMEAD

Stereotypers and Electrotypers, Philada.                             Printer, Philada.

CONTENTS.

——————

CHAPTER

I. THE HEIRESS OF McGREGOR

II. TONE BEAUBIEN'S DAUGHTER

III. AUNT CHRISTIAN

IV. SUNDAY

V. LONG TALKS

VI. "WHERE CAN SHE BE?"

VII. THE MISSION MEETING

VIII. "LEFT, BUT NOT ALONE"

IX. "FRESH FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW"

X. GOING AND STAYING

XI. "THE CLEAR CALL"

XII. THE JOURNEY

XIII. HEMLOCK VALLEY

XIV. LIFE IN THE WOODS

XV. MRS. GERTRUDE

XVI. "OVER IN THE JONES DISTRICT"

XVII. IN MOTHER'S ROOM

XVIII. THANKSGIVING

XIX. WINTER IN THE VALLEY

XX. ROCK BOTTOM

XXI. WORK AT ROCK BOTTOM

XXII. "IT WON'T DO"

THE HEIRESS OF McGREGOR.

——————

CHAPTER I.

THE HEIRESS OF McGREGOR.

THE heiress of McGregor walked slowly up the valley, absorbed in sorrowful thoughts, till a turn of the path brought to her view the baronial mansion of her forefathers. In other words, Marion McGregor, going home from school, came in sight of her father's house. The first expression was the way in which Marion would have liked to describe her progress; the latter was more in accordance with the stern, prosaic facts of the case.

Strictly speaking, it was not exactly true, either, for neither house nor farm belonged to the McGregor family, though they had lived there so many years that the house was always known as the McGregor place. It was part of a large estate which covered at least half of Holford county. A great Scotch nobleman had bought an immense tract of wild land in those parts very soon after the Revolution, and most of it remained in the hands of his grandson. It was partly improved and let on long leases as farming and grazing land, though there were still large tracts of mountain and forest which had never been touched by man.

On one of these leased farms, in a substantial though very plain and homely brick house, lived three generations of McGregors. These were, first, old Hector McGregor, the grandfather, who had come over from Scotland and taken the lease nearly fifty years before. He was a stout, hale old man, with blue eyes that were still bright and limbs which were still strong and able to carry him "to kirk and market," though he was fast approaching his ninetieth year. Then came a son and daughter, Alick and Barbara, and then a granddaughter, Marion. Alick was a widower and had no children; of the rest, one son was a minister in Minnesota, and another daughter the wife of a Syrian missionary. Barbara had never been married, and at fifty-five was not likely to be so. It was not for want of opportunity, for there had never been a prettier girl in Holford county than Baby McGregor, as her father in Scotch still called her. She had received more than one "grand offer," but Baby had put all her suitors courteously but firmly aside, and waited, first with the patience of hope, then with patient despair, and at last in the sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection, for one who went away to sea and never came home any more.

Few people save her father and brothers knew or guessed that Barbara had ever had any romance in her history. She was a bright, active, stirring housewife, ready to lend a hand in all her neighbours' real sorrows and difficulties, but, it must be confessed, a little too apt to be impatient of unnecessary worries, borrowed troubles, and sentimental woes. All of these she classed together under the general name of "fashes," and treated with more contempt than was absolutely necessary or desirable. She loved her own family dearly, and was ready to lay down her life every day and all day long in their service, but her great favourites were unquestionably her youngest sister, Christian, wife of the Reverend Doctor Campbell of Beyrout, Syria, and her niece, Marion. Both of these she had brought up; and as is usual with persons of her temperament, she loved them all the more for the trouble they had given her.

Marion was the child of another daughter, Eileen—or, as her father and sister called her, Eiley—McGregor. Eiley was even handsomer than Barbara, and she had been much more unfortunate. She made an ill-assorted marriage when she was quite too young to have been wedded at all, and found a worse disappointment in her marriage than Barbara had done in her bereavement. She married a man who, with a good education and some talents, had neither sense nor principle—a man who was too proud to work at what he contemptuously termed "menial occupations," meaning thereby any sort of honest hard work, but who was not too proud to let his wife labour hard at anything she could get to do to support herself and the child. His trade was that of a painter, and he might have done very well at the business, especially as he had some taste for the ornamental part of his profession. But he wanted to be an artist and a poet, though Nature had intended him for neither, and he neglected the work which might have supported his family to paint bad pictures which nobody would buy, and write worse verses which nobody would publish, much less pay for.

He died at last of fever, leaving his wife alone, with her one little girl, in Coaltown, in Pennsylvania, without money or acquaintance. Here she was found by a certain Mr. Van Alstine who had a great leather manufactory out in the hemlock woods, and engaged as a companion and housekeeper for his ailing wife. Eiley lived with Mrs. Van Alstine, nursed her, and took care of her children till the lady died, and the family was broken up for a time. Then she came home. She was still Eiley McGregor, for her husband had been a faraway cousin of the same name.

But after two years Mr. Van Alstine grew weary of living alone and having his children scattered, so he got them together once more and came to ask Eiley to be a mother to them. After some doubts and misgivings, Eiley consented. Mr. Van Alstine would gladly have taken Marion into the bargain, but old Hector had grown very fond of the little girl and begged to keep her, and so it was settled for the time.

The arrangement had never been altered. Mrs. Van Alstine had been married thirteen years, and had two boys of her own besides a host of step-sons, but Marion remained with her grandfather, and had never even paid a visit to Hemlock Valley, where her mother lived. Mrs. Van Alstine had been twice at home during the time, and kept up a close correspondence with her own family; but every time anything was said about claiming Marion, Aunt Barbara begged off. It was a pity to take Marion from Miss Oliver's school, where she was doing so well. It was a long journey. Eiley had her hands full already, and it was not good for a girl to be the only one among such a throng of lads. In short, Barbara had her way in this, as she did in most family matters. And Marion remained at the old red house, which she would have liked to turn into an ancient baronial mansion or a frowning Gothic pile.

The heiress of McGregor was in need of comfort, for a very unromantic misfortune had befallen her. She had been kept after school to finish her arithmetic lesson. Never in all her reading had Marion come across a similar instance of persecution. True, Adeline had been confined in an old castle, but that carried its own consolation with it. Amanda had escaped from her persecutors by jumping from a window into the arms of a faithful retainer in a boat (no very dangerous feat, judging from the illustration, since the boat needed only to be turned crosswise to bridge the stream completely). But as Adeline turned up in the very next chapter dressed in white and playing on the harp, it was to be presumed she was not greatly the worse. But to be kept after school—kept in like any little school-girl or boy to do a set of sums (examples had not yet invaded Miss Oliver's school) which she could easily have accomplished in thirty minutes!

No wonder Marion was in need of consolation. She had not found much satisfaction, either, in that fit of sulks in which she had indulged.

Miss Oliver waited for her exactly one half hour, then she said with decision,—

"I cannot wait for you any longer, Marion. You might easily have finished your lesson in half an hour if you had chosen to apply yourself, but I cannot let you waste your time as well as my own. You can go now, but you must not come to school again till your lesson is done and written out."

So saying, Miss Oliver dismissed Marion with small ceremony, locked the school-house and went to sewing-society.

As Marion turned the corner of the hill which hid her father's house from the village, she came upon a girl of her own age who seemed to have just risen from a stone by the wayside and was lifting a somewhat heavy and cumbrous basket. She was a thin, dark child with black hair which curled and twisted out of the sober braid in which its owner had tried to confine it, which made little rings round her face and neck and caught the brim of her hat. She had heavy black eyebrows which nearly came together over her nose, and very dark eyes which were independent in their way and could laugh merrily when all the rest of the face was composed to a demure calmness. She was plainly dressed, but everything she had on, from her slightly washed-out calico frock to her little black straw hat, was worn with a certain air of spruceness, and even elegance.

"Oh, Marion, how glad I am! Now I shall have company part of the way," she exclaimed, in a high, clear voice and with something of a foreign accent. "But what has kept you so late? Our Kitty was at home nearly an hour ago."

Heiress of McGregor.

"Oh, Marion, how glad I am!"

Marion was usually fond of Therese, but she was in no mood for talking with any one just now, much less for giving an account of her tardiness. She would have preferred to go on indulging her day-dream to the end of her walk. Moreover, she felt it an injustice that Tom Beaubien's daughter should have such large black eyes and curling black hair, while her own eyes were blue and her hair straight and light brown.

"I was detained," she answered, rather stiffly; and then, more good-naturedly, she added, "Where are you going so late with your basket?"

"Home," answered Therese, gayly—"home to stay with mother till Monday. Mrs. Tremaine is good enough to spare me so long, and she has sent mother, oh, such a fine chicken pie and some apples."

"Mrs. Tremaine is very good to your mother, isn't she?" said Marion, not much interested, but willing to divert Theresa's attention from her own troubles.

"Indeed she is, and Miss Tilly and Miss Kitty as well. Oh, I should be so happy there, only for leaving mother alone all the week. If she would only move to the village! But no; she says she cannot live in a crowd."

"And you like living at Mrs. Tremaine's?"

"Yes, indeed, especially since I have begun lessons."

"Lessons!" repeated Marion. "I thought you were working?"

"And so I am. I help Mrs. Tremaine with the work and wait on Miss Tilly now she is lame, but I have plenty of time still. So I learn each day an arithmetic and a grammar lesson, and say them in the evening to Mrs. Tremaine, and I learn sewing of Miss Tilly, and Kitty and I read French together."

"French!" said Marion, in surprise.

"Yes; Mrs. Tremaine and Miss Kitty speak it like natives of Paris, and madame says it is a pity for me to lose my own tongue, because it may be of use to me some day, so Kitty and I speak it together, and sometimes we sing it as well."

"Really!" said Marion, rather sarcastically. "You will be quite accomplished. And don't you have any time to amuse yourself?"

"Oh yes, indeed. I work in the garden and embroider and play with the cats, for we have three cats, you must know, like Cadet Roussel;" and Therese began to sing like a bobolink the little child's song,—

"Charles Roussel, a trois grands chats."

"You are always in good spirits, Therese," said Marion, with a little sigh.

"Why, yes," answered Therese, simply; "why not? Every one is very good to me; and only that mamma will live here alone, I should be quite happy. If I could only be in two places at once, I should have nothing to wish for," she concluded, laughing merrily.

"But don't you really wish for anything that you can't get?"

"To be sure; plenty of things. I wish for a new dress for Sundays, and a new roof to our house, which leaks dreadfully up-stairs sometimes; and when I pass the book-store and Whitaker's, I wish for new story-books and chocolates. And I wish—oh, I wish so much—that I could go to school to dear Miss Oliver."

"I don't think you would find that such a very great privilege," said Marion, in rather an injured tone, for Miss Oliver was not in her good books just now. "Miss Oliver knows enough, I dare say, but—However, there is no use in talking; she is pope in Holford just now, and it is high treason to say a word against her, but she isn't the teacher I should go to if I had my choice. I think she is very unsympathetic and tyrannical."

A shrewd little smile passed over Therese's averted face. She had a pretty good guess as to the cause of Marion's detention, but her instinctive good manners prevented her alluding to the matter.

"I would so like to go to school," said she, shifting her basket from one arm to the other; "and every one allows that Miss Oliver is a good teacher. But here we are at your door; or gate, rather. Good-night, Marion, and pleasant dreams." And Therese walked gayly on singing her little French song.

"How bright she is! It is a shame she should not go to school if she wants to go so much. I think Miss Oliver might take her for nothing, or Mrs. Tremaine might send her. I am sure she is rich enough. If I had as much money as they, I would seek out all the poor girls of talent, and educate them in the way best fitted to bring out their capacity. I would give Therese a musical education, and then she might come out and succeed, like Jenny Lind or Sontag, and I would sit in my private box and enjoy it all—her success and her gratitude. Oh, it would be lovely!"

Thus mused Marion as she walked up the lane which led to the back door of the McGregor place. And all the time it never occurred to her that she might have conferred a present and a very substantial benefit on Therese by helping her carry her heavy basket.

"You are late, lassie," said Miss Baby, kindly, meeting her at the door and relieving her of her books and basket. "What kept you so long?"

"I had something to do after school," answered Marion, blushing a little as she felt that this was not exactly a true account of the matter.

"Did you go to the post-office?"

"No; I was so late, and I thought Uncle Alick would have been down."

"You might know he would not be down in time for the mail without calling for you," said Miss Baby, "and it would not have taken ten minutes to run round by Whitaker's. And your grandfather's medicine; did you get that?" Then, as Marion made no reply, "Oh, Marie, that is too bad; when you came right by the doctor's door, and I gave you such a charge about it. What were you thinking of?"

Now, Marion remembered exactly what she was thinking of when she passed Doctor Gate's door, and it did not make her tone any more amiable as she answered,—

"In the first place Aunt Barbara, my name isn't Marie, and I don't choose to be called so, as I have told you before. I am sure I am sorry I forgot the medicine, but I don't see any need for making such a fuss. Grandfather can't be suffering for medicine as long as he is able to go out and plant corn."

"He will cough all night if he does not have it," was Miss Baby's reply; "and you know how Uncle Alick misses his paper in the evening. The long and short of it is, Marion, you must get the supper ready and take care of the milk while I go down with old Ball after the medicine and paper."

"Go down where?" asked Alick, who had just come in.

Miss Baby explained the matter.

"That will you not to-night," said Grandfather McGregor, who had heard the whole story from the outer kitchen, where he had been washing his face and hands. "Ball is lame and you are tired, and it is coming on to rain. I can want my drops and Alick his paper better than we can afford to have you laid up with the rheumatic fever again. Marie, my woman, you must take mare tent another time. You're no a child the day, and you must put away childish things."

Grandfather McGregor's lightest word was law in the household, and Miss Baby at once abandoned her purpose and set about getting supper.

"Well there, child! Don't stand brooding. What's done can't be undone, and what's undone can't be done, more's the pity," said she, seeing Marion was still standing with her hat on looking out of the window. "You must be more careful another time, for it vexes the gude father to have to fault you, and I'm sure you don't want to do that. Go and get ready for your supper."

"Yes, that's all she thinks of, supper, dinner, and breakfast, breakfast, dinner, and supper, the year round," thought Marion as she went to her room. "Never a bit of feeling, never a bit of sympathy, for me. All that goes to Aunt Christian. Oh, if I had only had her chance, what would not I have done? She lives to some purpose, but I—Oh, how wonderful are the decrees of providence!"

Marion did not imagine that she was failing to make use of the chances that came in her way or that there was any want of sympathy in her forgetting the medicine which would ensure her grandfather a good-night's rest, or in omitting to call for the paper which formed for her hard-working uncle almost his only evening's amusement.

She took her books when the lamp was lighted, and in less than an hour she had her lesson learned, copied, and ready for Miss Oliver's inspection. Then she took her knitting, but often let it fall into her lap as she gazed into the fire. Wood was cheap and plenty in Holford, and Hector McGregor would always have a fire on the hearth of the little parlour where he spent his evenings whenever the weather was cool enough to allow it.

"I wish I could take French lessons," said she at last. French was not in the course at Holford school, though Latin was.

"You seem to have lessons enough, and more, than enough, already, I should say," remarked Miss Baby, who had taken down the chessboard and was setting out the men. "I thought Miss Oliver did not give lessons to be learned out of school?"

"She doesn't usually, but this was extra work," replied Marion, finding a good deal of trouble in picking up a stitch. "But why can't I take lessons, Aunt Barbara? There is Therese Beaubien reading French with Kitty Tremaine every day, and singing French songs, and all."

"French comes natural to Therese," said Miss Barbara, "and so it does to Kitty Tremaine for that matter. She was born in Paris, I have heard say, and I know they take French papers, for she gave me some to send Christian."

"Well, I think it is a pity if I can't have as many advantages as Tone Beaubien's daughter."

"You should not speak in that slighting way, Marie," said her grandfather. "Therese is a nice little lass, and it is not her fault that she had not a better father. I hope nobody casts it up to the child."

"I am sure I don't," said Marion. "And there was Aunt Christian, too. She has had French lessons and music, and what not, and now she is in Scotland, and her husband is a cousin of a duke, and I dare say he will call on them."

Grandfather McGregor laughed outright, a very unusual thing for him.

"Oh, lassie, little ye ken. Doubtless the duke will speak to your cousin Duncan if he comes in his way, for I dare say he's a fine gentleman, like most of his forbears, but to call on him! You might as well expect the queen herself."

"Well, anyhow, Aunt Christian is going all over the world and seeing everything, and I never have a chance."

"Indeed, Marie—Well, there, child! I won't say it again if I can help it. I think you have a good many," said Miss Barbara.

"But can't I take French lessons, grandfather?" persisted Marion.

"No, child, not now," answered her grandfather, kindly but decidedly. "If harvest comes in well, and we get a good price for the butter, we'll see what can be done, but now I can't take on any new expense. I'd like to please you, child, but it's just impossible. What have you there, Baby?"

"The chessmen, father. I am trying to make Alick rut up his chess against Duncan and Christian come home. You know Duncan was always so fond of chess."

"It's odd we don't hear again," said the old man. "I dare say they are on their way home. Marie, woman, there's a chance for you. Get your aunt to teach you chess. It is a fine game, and good mental discipline, they say. Take care, man Alick; look out for your knight with yon queen. Look on now, Marie, and you'll see a fine battle."

But Marion would not be interested. She worked away at her knitting in sullen silence till bedtime and went to bed thinking herself very ill used.

"There goes her father over again," said Alick to his sister when Marion left the room, "always missing the present chance, always going to do some great thing or other when something else happens, and doing nothing in the mean time."

"Oh, she is but a child still, and you must have patience with her," said Miss Barbara. "She does vex me sometimes, as she did to-night, but she'll mend as she grows older, you'll see."

"I hope I shall, but there is small chance of her mending so long as she cannot see a fault in herself. Things don't often mend simply by growing older."

"Wild kittens make solemn cats," quoted Miss Barbara, who never liked to hear any one find fault with Marion. "I mean to let her have French lessons if I can, seeing her heart is set on it, but I will talk the matter over with Miss Oliver first."

"Did she say that Tone Beaubien's daughter had gone home?" asked Alick. "I hoped Mrs. Tremaine would keep her. She is a likely lass."

"I believe she has only gone home to stay over Sunday. I wonder if her father will ever come back?"

"I have my suspicions that he has been back, if he is not looking about now," said Alick, in a low tone.

"He would never dare to show himself, surely?"

"Not openly, of course, but I am very much mistaken if I did not see him up on Blue Hill yesterday when I was looking for the colt. He has grown a beard if it was he, but the upper part of his face is not easily changed."

"You must be careful, Alick," said his sister, anxiously. "You know he owes you a special grudge."

"Never fear," said Alick, lightly. "He values his neck too much to run any risks or make any stir in these parts."

"I wonder whether his wife knows it?"

"There is no telling. I have sometimes thought there might be some reason for her preferring to live by herself in that lonesome place."

"I think she is very honest," said Miss Barbara. "You know she has worked for us a great deal, and beyond her crabbed, unsocial ways, I have never seen a fault in her. You could hardly call it a fault that she is faithful to her husband, wretch as he is. I am sure I hope he will not come back for all their sakes, and especially for that of the child."

CHAPTER II.

TONE BEAUBIEN'S DAUGHTER.

JUST at the corner of the McGregor farm a narrow green road branched off from the main track and led upward among the hills. It was so little used that the short grass nearly covered it, and the melting snows and rains had so gullied and washed the track that any wheeled carriage less strong than a lumber-wagon would have been in great danger of being wrecked. At first the road was bordered by stone walls showing their age by the mosses and lichens which spotted them. Higher up the boundary vanished altogether on one side, and on the other turned into an ancient fence of pine and hemlock stumps, such as one often sees in New England, the worn and bleached but imperishable roots rising above the blackberry and clematis vines which covered the lower part like the bones of antediluvean monsters.

On that side was a stony pasture the sight of which would have made Western-bred cows give up life in despair, but from which, nevertheless, came many a sturdy cheese and roll of fragrant butter. On the other side was first a tripping, chattering brook, then a narrow strip of wood largely made up of black spruce, and behind this a high rocky wall, steep as the side of a house most of the way, though here and there a gap and a narrow, hard-beaten path showed that the sheep had found a way to climb the barrier.

Into this road Therese Beaubien turned and walked rapidly along, singing as she went till the steepness of the ascent and the weight of her basket made it necessary to economize her breath.

It was a lonely place enough; but Therese had no fears. She had travelled it ever since she could remember, and oftener alone than in company. She did start and look round rather fearfully once at a sudden and unaccountable rustle in the bushes near the road, but laughed at her own fears, as nothing appeared to justify them.

"If a bear should come out upon me, I would appease him with the chicken pie, as Fifine appeased the lions with the mutton in the fairy-tale," said she to herself; "but, after all, it is a lonesome place, especially in winter, when the wind howls through the spruces and hemlocks and among the rocks. I do wish mother would move down to the village."

As she spoke, she came in sight of a little red house, very small in itself and looking smaller by contrast with the enormous mass of stone under the shelter of which it was built. Tiny as it was, it looked in good repair and comfortable. There was even some cultivation about it in the shape of a small garden and a very little field of potatoes and corn. Two or three apple trees grew about the house, but they were old and neglected. The little house was such as one often sees in remote situations in Vermont and New Hampshire, where one is tempted to think the first settlers sought out the most dreary and unpromising situations. There was nothing at all remarkable about it, except that all the lower windows were provided with strong wooden shutters.

Even in the June evening both doors and windows were closed. It was not a cheerful-looking home, but Therese seemed to feel her spirits revive at the sight of it, and she quickened her steps. She opened the door softly, intending to surprise her mother. If she succeeded, the surprise did not seem to be an agreeable one. There was nobody in the front room, nor in the little bedroom which opened from it, but as Therese went forward to the door which opened into the little back kitchen she was met by her mother with the words, spoken in a tone of evident consternation,—

"You unlucky child! What has brought you home to-day?"

Therese was certainly very much taken aback, but she was familiar with her mother's moods; and besides, she thought she understood at once the cause of Mrs. Beaubien's evident discomposure:

"Don't be alarmed, mother. I know what you are thinking of, but I have not lost my place. On the contrary, they want me to stay all summer. But Mrs. Tremaine said I must consult you about the matter, and so she let me come for a little visit, and I am to stay till Monday."

By this time Mrs. Beaubien seemed to have recovered her presence of mind.

"She is very good, I am sure. I hope she has not put herself to inconvenience in the matter?" said she, trying to speak in her usual tone.

"Oh no; she said she did not mind. See what she has sent you. And only think, mamma! She has paid me seventy-five cents a week instead of fifty for all the time I have been there. So I have half as much again as I expected, and I have brought it home to you."

"You should not have done that," said her mother. "Better leave it in madame's hands. She is a good lady, and will advise you how to lay it out to the best advantage."

"I thought you would take it and buy yourself a new dress for Sunday," said Therese, evidently disappointed.

"No, no, child! What have I to do with Sunday? Well, there! Never mind. You are a good girl to think of me; but you need clothes more than I. Run up-stairs and see the new kittens."

Therese did as she was bid. She certainly did brush away a tear or two from her long black lashes as she bent over the kittens' basket and fondled the old cat.

She had been looking forward to her visit all the week long and making her little preparations for it, but she could not help seeing that her coming was unwelcome and ill-timed from some reason that she could not understand—that her mother was not glad to see her and wished her away. But she did not feel it as another girl would have done. She had been used to humouring her mother's dark moods ever since she could remember, and to seeing them come and go without any apparent cause. A cloud had overhung the little red house ever since she could recollect. She had learned not to be surprised when it lowered even deeper than usual, and to be thankful when it lifted ever so little.

There was in Holford a colony of French Canadians who had emigrated from the neighbourhood of Quebec and settled in that place, forming a suburb of the little village, called Frenchtown. They were a harmless set, not given to the hard work and close economy of their neighbours, but rather favourites than otherwise, from their good-nature and kindly ways. The women kept house and were called on to wash or cook when extra help was needed; some of the girls went to service or worked in the woollen mills or the cheese factories. The men helped in harvest and planting-time, practiced various little handicrafts, and hunted in the great woods of the Callum estate. The elders among them were nominal Roman Catholics, but the younger people had been got into Sunday schools and Bible classes, and not a few were church members.

Among these people the Beaubien family decidedly took the lead in respectability and thrift. One daughter had married a well-to-do farmer, another had a milliner's shop, in which she succeeded so well as to bring much custom from the neighbouring towns. One of the boys had cleared a farm for himself on the mountain side, and was doing well upon it, and the others were all recognized as respectable if not very industrious citizens.

But there was one black sheep in the flock. Antoine—or, as he was usually called, Tone—Beaubien was one of those boys who seem to love evil for its own sake, and at twenty-one he was a thorough outlaw. He had been in jail for various small robberies more than once, and was very strongly suspected of the graver offences of sheep stealing and passing counterfeit money. At twenty-five he was doing somewhat better. He worked with his father at his trade of harness and saddle making, in which the old man excelled, and was tolerably sober and steady, with the exception of an occasional spree, and now and then an absence of two or three months, when nobody knew of his whereabouts.

The prettiest and one of the steadiest girls in the settlement was Rose Duval, old Gabriel Duval's only child. Great was the amazement when it was discovered that she was being courted by Tone Beaubien, and that she was determined to marry him. In vain was every obstacle thrown in her way. In vain did Gabriel Duval forbid him the house. In vain did the Beaubiens themselves, who loved Rose dearly, tell her of Tone's character and warn her of the risk she ran. The wilful girl would have her way.

On one of Tone's periodical disappearances, Rose disappeared also, and came back with him at the end of three months just in time to see her father buried. Old Gabriel willed his daughter the little house and the land belonging to it as her portion, and there Tone and his young wife took up their abode. For a while things seemed to go well with them. They had the necessaries and a good many of the luxuries of life. Tone was often absent for weeks at a time, and his wife said he went as a sailor on the lake; but as these absences came quite as often in winter as in summer, very few people believed the story.

At last matters came to a climax. An old gentleman who had drawn a large sum of money from the Holford bank was shot down and robbed on his way home by three men. He lived long enough to give an account of the matter, and named Tone Beaubien as one of his assailants. Tone tried to prove an alibi but unluckily Alick McGregor swore to seeing him twice on the very day of the murder in the neighbourhood of his own house. Tone was committed for trial, but in some way or other he escaped, and was never seen in Holford again.

Nobody even suspected Rose of any share in her husband's misdeeds, and the people of Holford were as kind as she would allow them to be. Both her mother and her father-in-law would have taken her home, but she refused their offers, and lived alone with Therese in the old house under Blue Hill, having as little as possible to do with any one. She went out to work for the two or three farmers who lived within walking distance, and cultivated her potato-patch and garden ground with her own hands.

One of the hereditary arts of the French settlers was the making of a peculiar kind of fine basket-work. Rose took up this trade and made improvements on it. She sent her wares to a neighbouring city, where she got good prices for them, and in these ways she supported herself and her little girl.

Such was the cloud which overshadowed Therese Beaubien's entrance into life, and certainly it was a heavy one. Nevertheless, Therese managed to find a good deal of sunshine. Her health was perfect; her mother was sometimes affectionate, and never positively unkind. Though Rose herself never entered the door of either her mother or her father-in-law, she allowed Therese to visit both. The little girl stayed weeks and months with kind, cheerful old Grandfather Beaubien and her grandmother Duval.

Her aunts Lenore and Fanchette taught her to sew and knit, to make lace with the needle—another hereditary employment of the Beaubien family—and made much of her in all sorts of ways. Grandmother Duval taught her to read the Bible both in French and English—for she was a Protestant and well educated—and gave her many lessons in morals and manners.

The village children were usually kind when she encountered them though, now and then, when any quarrel arose, she met with the spiteful taunt, "I don't want to play with Tone Beaubien's girl! What can you expect of Tone Beaubien's daughter?"

Therese loved her mother with overflowing affection, but it was not strange that she liked to escape from the shadow of poor Rose's moody sorrow and the loneliness of the old house to the bright kitchen and cheerful ways of Grandfather Beaubien's household. As she grew up, she could not avoid coming to the conviction that her mother preferred living alone. It was hard to think so, but there was no escape from it; and therefore Therese was not surprised when her mother one day informed her that she was to go and live with Mrs. Tremaine in the village:

"Miss Tilly is lame, and the lady wishes some one to wait on her and to help in the work. She is an excellent lady and will be kind to you."

"I am afraid that grandfather will not be pleased," said Therese, rather doubtfully. "He said he wished me to live with him and be his girl when you did not want me."

"I do not choose that you shall live upon your grandfather's bounty," answered Mrs. Beaubien, with the stern anger she always showed whenever Therese manifested any will of her own. "Do you mean to set up for yourself against me so soon?"

"No, mother," answered Therese, humbly; "I am sure I shall like living with Mrs. Tremaine."

"Like it or not, you go there to-morrow."

"But, mamma, why cannot I stay with you? I would much rather. I can help you with the baskets and keep the house and read to you sometimes. Why should I leave you here alone all winter in this dreary place? Please let me stay with you, and I will be as contented as a little mouse."

With one of her sudden changes of mood, poor Rose caught the child in her arms and covered her with kisses and tears:

"You are my own darling and the light of my eyes, but, dear child, I must send you away. You must learn many things which I cannot teach you, and there are other reasons which I cannot explain. You will often come to see me, and no doubt madame will let you go to grandfather's, for she has been a good friend to the family at all times. Be a good girl, obey the lady in all things, learn all you can, and doubtless you will always have friends."

Therese said no more in opposition, for she saw there was no use in it, and with her usual cheerfulness, she at once turned her eyes to the bright side of the picture: "I dare say I can go to church and Sunday school every Sunday."

"No doubt. Madame has always taught in the school ever since she came to the place, and she is very religious."

"And I can draw books from the Sunday school, and the school library if I live in the district. Aunt Lenore does so; and I know Miss Kitty has plenty of story-books. Oh yes, I shall be very happy."

And very happy Therese undoubtedly was. She had lived at Mrs. Tremaine's all winter, and Mrs. Tremaine had no mind to part with her. But Therese often felt her heart go out with a great yearning toward her solitary mother, and as the spring came on, she felt drawn toward the woods and the rocky pasture she knew so well. She had come home to consult her mother as to her staying with half a hope that she might remain. That hope had vanished already, and she could not help shedding a few tears over its disappearance; but she soon wiped them away and prepared to make the most of her visit.

Mrs. Beaubien, too, seemed to wish to make up for her cool welcome. She exerted herself to talk more than usual, asked the news in the village, and was interested to hear that Aunt Madeline had a new baby girl, and Uncle Claude insisted on calling it Michelle, after Grandfather Beaubien. Still, she seemed somewhat absent, and Therese once or twice thought she seemed to be listening.

"What are you listening to, mother?" she asked at last. "I don't hear anything."

Mrs. Beaubien started: "I thought I heard a noise among the hens. The foxes have carried off two or three lately. Come, daughter, you had better go to bed; you have had a long walk, and must be tired."

Therese was not unwilling to go to bed, for she was really very tired. "Are you not coming too?" she asked.

"Not just yet; I have a bit of work to finish. But I will not have you sit up. Go to bed and to sleep."

Therese hesitated a minute, and then took courage:

"Miss Kitty has given me a French Testament, and I promised her I would read a little every night. May I read to you?"

"Yes, child, if you like."

Therese read the parable of the sower, and then prepared for bed.

"I will come before long," said her mother. "Sleep sound, and don't mind if you hear me moving about."

Therese did sleep sound, but some time in the night she thought or dreamed that she heard people talking in subdued tones, and that some one said rather roughly,—

"Nonsense! I must have the money, and she can get more. You can make excuses enough."

Presently she was waked by some sound like the closing of a door, and by her mother coming to bed.

"Are you not very late?" she asked, rubbing her eyes.

"Rather; my work took more time than I thought. There! Go to sleep again."

All day Saturday Mrs. Beaubien found excuses for keeping Therese close by her side, and Therese, though a little disappointed at losing her run in the pasture, yet rejoiced too much in her mother's unwonted mood of softness not to make the most of her opportunities.

"Does your grandfather ever say anything about your father?" asked Mrs. Beaubien at last.

Therese was astonished. She had never heard her mother mention her father before. She hesitated.

"Yes, I see," said her mother. "They have all tried to set you against him."

"No, indeed, mother," answered Therese, eagerly. "Grandfather told me to say a prayer for father whenever I said my prayers, and I always do."

"And was that all?"

"He said father was led away by bad company and by drink, and he made me promise never to touch a drop of drink."

"Keep that promise, whatever you do," said her mother, earnestly. "If grandfather had always been of that mind, things might have been very different with us."

"Grandfather said that too," observed Therese. "Mother, do you think I shall ever see my father?"

"No, child, never," answered Mrs. Beaubien; "and, Therese, you must never mention his name. Try to make a good name for yourself, so that every one may forget whose daughter you are. That is the best you can do for your poor father."

"I can pray for him, mamma," said Therese, softly. "Grandmother Duval said once that wherever he had wandered, he could not go out of God's sight, and therefore he could not go out of the reach of his children's prayers. Oh, mother, I wish you would go to see her sometimes. Why don't you?"

"She does not want to see me, child."

"Indeed, dear mother, she does," said Therese, eagerly. "She always asks so many questions about you when I go to see her, and she always prays for you morning and evening. Oh, if you would only go, you would see."

Mrs. Beaubien shook her head:

"No, no, Therese; I shall never set foot in Holford village again; but when you go to see my mother, tell her I wish I had been a better daughter to her, and ask her to give me her blessing and her prayers; and be you a kind and dutiful child to her, for she was always the best of mothers to me."

"Yes, dear mother," said Therese, inwardly rejoiced at even this symptom of relenting, and at once beginning to build various castles in the air as to the possibility of bringing her grandmother and her mother together once more.

"And then mother and grandmother will live together in the village, and mother will go to church. Oh, it will be lovely."

Sunday morning came, and with it an end of Therese's visit.

"I think you had better set out for the village as soon as you have done your breakfast," said Mrs. Beaubien. "I don't like to have you miss your Sunday school; and besides, if you stay till afternoon, you may not be able to go at all, for I think we shall have a storm. And, Therese, if you don't mind—if you can leave me part of that money—"

"I will leave you all of it, dear mother. Perhaps you are right about the storm," said Therese, peering out of the window. "I can see every tree and bush on old Haystack."

"Let me comb and braid your hair for you," said Rose as Therese began her preparations. "See, I will curl it for once as I used to wear mine when I was a little girl."

Much pleased, Therese submitted to the curling.

When she had finished, Mrs. Beaubien cut out a thick black curl from the beautiful mass.

"There! I will keep that for myself and give you a keepsake in return," said she. She put her hand into her pocket and drew out an old-fashioned gold miniature setting containing on one side a pretty picture of a young lady in the dress of Louis XIV.'s time, and on the other a place for hair. The picture was attached to a hair chain, which she threw over Therese's neck.

"That has been in our family for centuries, and has always belonged to the oldest daughter," said she. "It shall be yours now. I have braided a chain of my own hair for it. Show it to mother and she will tell you its history. Now I am going to walk down with you as far as the stone step."

The stone step was a kind of stile leading over the wall into Hector McGregor's pasture.

"I must go no farther," said Mrs. Beaubien, when they had reached this place. "When shall you come home again?"

"Next Saturday, perhaps. Good-bye, mother."

Rose Beaubien caught her child in her arms and silently kissed her over and over again. Then, hastily withdrawing herself, she walked quickly back without once turning round.

When Therese went to bed that night, she missed her little French Testament. "It is very odd; I am sure I put it in my pocket when I finished reading. I must go up and get it some day this week."

There was a thunder-storm in the evening, as Rose Beaubien predicted. Just as it rolled away, a man and woman came down the Blue Hill road.

"Wait for me here a few minutes," said the man to his companion as they came to the stile. "I have forgotten something it won't do to leave behind me."

"Be sure you leave all safe," said the woman. "Had I not better go back with you?"

"No, stay where you are; you will have walking enough, and more than enough," replied her companion, not unkindly. "I will not be gone long, and I will leave all safe, never fear."

He went back to the house, entered it, and seemed to be busy for some minutes striking a match and lighting a lamp. Then he came out, closed the door, and rejoined his companion.

"Have you left all safe?"

"Yes, safe enough, never fear. Come on; we must be far from this by morning."

CHAPTER III.

AUNT CHRISTIAN.

SATURDAY passed at the McGregor farm, as Saturdays usually pass in New England, in getting ready for Sunday. All that could be cooked was cooked, and some extra dainties prepared, for Miss Baby, though she made her Sunday a day of rest, did not choose to have it a fast-day.

"Don't you mean to go to the village to-day, Alick?" asked his sister at dinner.

"No, I think not. I have some tinkering to do about the barn, so I asked Bryant to bring the mail."

"I'll go down and bring up the mail, Uncle Alick," said Marion. "I don't mind the walk a bit, and I dare say Aunt Baby has some other errand."

"That I have, but I don't see how you can go very well this afternoon," said Miss Baby. "You want your new dress to-morrow, you know, and there is the band to be put on the skirt and the fringe on the basque."

"Oh dear! Always something in the way whenever I want to do anything!" said Marion, impatiently.

"You can't say I put the fringe in your way at least, Marie woman," said her aunt, smiling. "You know I did not like it at all; but now you have calculated for it, the dress cannot be finished without it. However, you can wear your gray merino or your new gingham if the day should be warm."

"I think you might sew it on for me."

"I have my own to finish. However, I dare say my old one will serve me once more."

Marion had the grace to feel ashamed of her proposition:

"You want yours more than I do mine, if anything. No, I will stay and finish it. I'm sure I wish I had never bought the old fringe. I dare say it is all out of fashion, and that is the reason it was so cheap. Now, you needn't say 'I told you so,' Aunt Baby. It is vexatious enough without that."

"Marie, my lass, you must not speak to your auntie Baby in that way," said old Hector, gravely. "It ill becomes one of your age to be so fretted."

Grandfather was the one person in the household of whom Marion stood in awe, and she subsided into a sulky silence, which she maintained till Alick came in with the letters.

"Any for me, Uncle Alick?" said Marion, jumping up.

"Not this time; but one from Christian, Baby, and post-marked New York. Bryant says Whitaker told him it came yesterday."

"From Christian! Then they have landed. Why, yes. This was written day before yesterday, and—Why, Alick!"

"Well, what?"

"Christian says, 'We shall leave here Friday night; and if all goes well, we shall be at home Saturday by the afternoon train.'"

"The afternoon train is in half an hour ago."

"I should not wonder if they had come already," said Baby. "They may be waiting down at the village this minute."

"I will hitch up and go down directly," said Alick. "They must think it very strange that nobody came to meet them. Don't you want to go, Marie?"

A minute before, Marion had decided that every one was going to blame her because she had forgotten to call at the post-office, and had made up her mind to bear the reproaches in mournful silence. So she naturally found it rather provoking to be offered a ride instead. However, she was too much excited to sulk just now.

"I don't think I will, Uncle Alick; Aunt Baby will want some help," said she, amiably enough.

"Well, then, run and call grandfather and give him the news, and then go up and open the windows of the east room and put on the sheets that hang on the foot of the bed," said Miss Baby. "Make the room look pretty and neat, and I will see to matters down here."

Marion went to work with both zeal and judgment, for she was by no means wanting in sense when she could condescend to "give her mind to small details," as she expressed it, or, in other words, to mind what she was about. She made up the bed neatly with the white home-made linen which Aunt Baby had been airing for a week, supplied the wash-stand with water and clean towels, and put a nosegay of sweet spring flowers on the table. When she had finished, she surveyed her work with no very satisfied expression. Many people would have thought the room an inviting one, but not so Marion. The home-made carpet on the floor, the old-fashioned, high-post bedstead with its chintz hangings, the high, round-fronted bureau with a desk at the top, were all dreadfully old-fashioned and shabby in her eyes.

"I wish we ever could have anything like anybody else," said she to herself. "How these old things will look to Aunt Christian after all she has seen! I do think grandfather might open his purse far enough to buy some new furniture. The Bryants are not so well off as we are, and they bought new furniture for their front rooms, up-stairs and down."

She went down to the wide, cool kitchen, which was always the dining-room in the warm weather, and found the tea-table already prepared with a set of bluish-white china painted with little bunches of roses and forget-me-not. The saucers, large and deep, and the little round cups without handles, showed the date of their manufacture. Miss Baby was in the milk-room skimming cream and making other hospitable preparations, and a delicious odour of cooking came in from the back kitchen.

Marion uttered an angry exclamation:

"Now, that is too bad, to set the table in the kitchen; I declare, I won't have it so."

She at once began to reverse the arrangement when her grandfather came in:

"What are you doing, lass?"

"I am going to set the table in the parlour," answered Marion; "I don't think Uncle Duncan and Aunt Christian will want to eat in the kitchen."

"If Uncle Duncan and Aunt Christian don't like the ways of their father's house, they can go elsewhere," said the old man. "You are too upsetting, Marion; let the table be where it is."

"At any rate, I mean to take off that horrid blue earthenware and put on the white china set Mr. Van Alstine sent us," said Marion; and she hastened to accomplish her purpose while she had the kitchen to herself.

A shrewd smile passed over Miss Baby's face as she observed the change, but she made no remark.

The white china was like other white china, neat and pretty, but nothing more. Marion, however, surveyed it with great satisfaction, and, the change accomplished, she grew more amiable.

"I wonder whether Uncle Duncan will look as I expect?" said she as she stood watching from the window which commanded the road.

"That depends upon what you expect," said Miss Baby. "I have not seen Duncan Campbell in fourteen years; but when he was last here, he looked very much like the duke of Callum that then was."

"Is he really related to the duke, aunt?" asked Marion.

"Oh yes, I suppose so; all the Campbells are of one clan."

"It is odd that he should have married Aunt Christian, I think."

"Not odd at all, my lass," said old Hector. "There has been many an intermarriage between the two clans in old time. The Campbells were aye friends to our clan, and gave them shelter and protection when they were chased from their own lands and hearths in the days of Rob Roy that you have heard of."

"Those were splendid days to live in," said Marion, with enthusiasm; "a man's life was worth something in those days."

"Do you think so? I don't. I should not like to get up some fine morning and find out that the Shadbury folk had come over and carried off all my cows, and very likely burned my barns into the bargain, and, on the whole, I would rather raise sheep than steal them. But here come our friends at last—a welcome sight."

"Like the duke! Then, of course, Uncle Duncan is tall and majestic; dukes always are, I think," said Marion to herself as she hurried to the door.

Alas for her romance! There was Uncle Alick holding the horses, and a lady being helped down by a somewhat small, very wiry, and determined-looking little gentleman, with—could it be? Yes, it was—with red hair and a flowing red beard. Could that be Uncle Duncan? There was no doubt about it. She had hardly picked herself up, so to speak, after such a prodigious mental tumble, when she was folded in the arms of the lady.

"And this must be Marion, I am sure, from her likeness to Eiley. You all call her Marie, I hope."

"Sometimes," said Miss Barbara. "Eh, children, you have been a weary while away. I began to think you never were coming."

"And what did we think, Sister Baby, when we landed at the Holford station and found nobody to meet us?" said Doctor Campbell. "I thought we gave our letter plenty of time."

"That was an accident. The letter came yesterday, but nobody happened to go to the post-office," said Alick. "I met them just at the turn of the road, Baby, trudging along in doleful style."

"Aweel, 'All's well that ends well' however," said Miss Baby. "Run up to the east room, Christie, my bairn, and get ready for your supper. I am sure you must want it."

"How homelike it all seems here!" said Christian when they were seated around the table and old Hector had asked a fervent blessing on their meeting. "I was afraid you would have taken to 'chamber sets' and other view-fangled devices. It seems so cosy to see the old chintz hangings and dark furniture just as I left it."

"Na, na," said the old man. "Ye 'll find no new fashions here, my woman, not so long as I am to the fore."

"But, Baby, I do miss one thing," said Christian as she took her cup. "Where is the dear old china, the bonny wee cups? I thought you would have them out to celebrate our return, as you used to do our birthdays. I hope nothing has happened to them, for, forbye they were our grandmother's, that old china is priceless, just now."

"Well, you see, Mr. Van Alstine sent Marie the white china in a present, so she naturally likes to show it," answered Miss Baby. "The wee cups are all safe and sound, and you shall have them for your breakfast, with your own basin for your porridge. I have never let any one eat porridge from your basin, though we have them for breakfast every morning.* But perhaps you have forgotten how to eat oatmeal?"

* Both "porridge" and "broth" are plural nouns in Scotch, and take plural verbs and pronouns.

"Hoot, toot!" said Doctor Campbell, laughing. "Have we not just come from 'the land o' cakes'?"

Meantime, Marion sat blushing scarlet at her own stupidity. What could she have been thinking of? Of course the old china was the most elegant. Did not Mrs. Tremaine so value the few bits she possessed of it as to give them the most honoured place in the china cupboard? How could she have been so stupid! And how lucky that no one knew of her blunder but Aunt Baby, who had turned it off so cleverly! What would Aunt Christian have said if she had only known? And so she sat in silence, vexed and uncomfortable, while the others laughed and chattered broad Scotch, and even Gaelic, which, however, nobody could speak fluently but Hector and Duncan Campbell.

"Oh, and you must know we met Mr. Van Alstine and Eiley in New York."

"No! Where did you find them?"

"Came plump upon them the first thing before we had been ashore an hour," said Doctor Campbell. "Van Alstine had come up to see about some disembarkation of Southern hides or other savoury commodities of that nature. He seems a fine fellow."

"He is a fine fellow," said Alick. "And how did you think Eiley was looking?"

"Uncommonly well—far better than I ever saw her before," answered the doctor.

"Yes, she looks like her own old self before—before Duncan remembers her," said Christian, seemingly altering the construction of her sentence on a second thought. "I have a letter and a parcel for you in my bag, Marie. You have never been to visit your mother in her new home, I believe?"

"No, ma'am."

"And Mr. Van Alstine has never found time to visit us but once," said old Hector. "Then I was very much pleased with him. He seems a kind, sensible man, and makes Eiley a good husband, though I often think she must have a heavy handful with all yon lads, and not a lass among them to help her."

"It is very nice sitting over the supper-table this fashion," said Alick; "but if Christian and Duncan are to have their trunks to-night, I must go after them, though what any one wants of so much luggage I cannot guess."

"Hoot, toot, man Alick! Ye have no seen the half yet. Think how many presents we had to remember. I wanted to have brought you a pair of leather-eared, white-eyed Syrian goats, but I could find no convenient way to pack them. I will go with you and help you load up."

"Your parcel is in my bag, Marie. I thought you would want to see it directly," said Aunt Christian. "Baby is older, and can wait for hers. The letter is from your mother, the present from your father."

Marion's curiosity was too much excited to allow her to take her usual offence at hearing Mr. Van Alstine called her father. To her credit be it said, however, she glanced over the letter before touching the parcel. Joy of joys! The box contained a plain and simple but pretty gold hunting-case watch and chain.

"A watch! A real live watch!" exclaimed Marion. "And such a beauty! Look, Auntie Baby."

Miss Baby and her father both sympathized in Marion's delight over her pretty present.

"I really think we must send Marie to Hemlock valley for a visit when school is out, father," said Baby. "It is a shame she should not know her brothers better."

"I am sure I should like to go, though the Van Alstine boys don't seem the least like my brothers," said Marion, "any more than Mr. Van Alstine does like my father. I don't approve at all of second marriages, do you, Aunt Christian? It seems so heartless, somehow."

"You can hardly expect me to be a fair judge of that matter, all things considered," said Aunt Christian, laughing and colouring.

And then only did Marion remember that Aunt Christian was both a second wife and the child of a second marriage.

"Never mind, Marion dear you meant no harm," said Christian, perceiving and pitying Marion's embarrassment. "Everybody does such things sometimes. It isn't half so bad as asking a Turkish gentleman after his wife and family, and I did that once."

"Why shouldn't you?" asked Baby.

"Oh, it is a dreadful breach of etiquette. I knew better, too; it was sheer carelessness on my part. I have the poor man's photograph, and will show it to you. I always fancy the picture looks at me with something of the same expression of consternation. You should have seen old Doctor G. look at me."

Marion was diverted from her mistake for the time, as Aunt Christian meant she should be. She felt, as every one did who met Mrs. Campbell, the indescribable charm of perfect good breeding. But more than once during the evening she turned scarlet with shame as she remembered the blunder she had made.

"How true it is that in the most festive scene there shines an undertone of sadness! Even in our joyful meeting the serpent of disappointment lurked in the brimming goblet. But such is the lot of man." So wrote Marion in her journal that night. She did not say what was the particular serpent in this case. Perhaps it was the fact that an uncle who resembled a duke should be short and red haired.

She had a misgiving that her figure was rather mixed—that undertones did not shine nor serpents inhabit goblets; so she closed the book hastily without reading over what she had written, and went to bed to dream of Turkish gentlemen with any number of wives.

CHAPTER IV.

SUNDAY.

THE Sunday morning rose fair and beautiful, and every one was stirring in good time, for milk must be cared for and animals fed on Sunday as well as on other days. Marion was a little late—not a very uncommon occurrence; and when she came down, it was to find Aunt Christian doing her special work of setting the table, placing the porridge-basins and her father's pitcher of kirn milk (buttermilk) by his place as if she had always done it.

"That is my work, Aunt Christian," said Marion, trying to speak pleasantly, though she felt a little vexed, she hardly knew why.

"Is it? It always used to be mine. I believe setting the table is always the work of the youngest member of the family. It seemed very natural to fall into it again."

"Aunt Christian means to show us that she doesn't feel above us," thought Marion as she began to put things in order in the sitting-room; but she was mistaken.

It never occurred to Aunt Christian to think that any should suppose her capable of "feeling above" any one, least of all her own family.

"Did you preach while you were in Scotland, Duncan?" asked old Hector as after prayers they sat down to breakfast.

"Oh yes, several times—once at St. Andrew's, where I had a famous churchful of professors and students and the principal himself, two or three times in other places, and once at I—, where the duke himself did me the honour to come and hear me."

Marion cast a glance of triumph at Aunt Baby.

"That was very civil of His Grace," said Hector.

"Did he speak to you?" asked Marion.

"Yes; he made me a very pretty compliment and asked me to call upon him."

"And did you?"

"Of course. I was bound to pay my duty to my chief and my father's landlord; and besides, His Grace was pleased to desire some information concerning his affairs in these parts which I was able to give him. He was very gracious, asked specially after you, father—and presented me his snuff-mull to give you, a fine silver one with a Cairngorm pebble for a lid."

"That was very pretty of him," said the old man, evidently much gratified. "I shall use it with much pleasure."

"How does he look, Uncle Duncan?" asked Marion.

"He is said very strongly to resemble your humble servant, my dear. I think I am quite his equal in good looks, though I say it that shouldn't."

"Were you frightened at preaching before him?" asked Marion, pursuing her catechism.

"Not a bit. I was rather blate at holding forth before the principal of St. Andrew's, but I soon forgot it. There is one great pleasure in preaching to a Scotch congregation—you are sure that not a word will be lost by inattention."

"But, Uncle Duncan, I thought you were a medical doctor, and not a D. D.?" said Marion.

"Both, Marie; I preach on Sundays and practice on week-days."

"Then you do more than a good many people," said Uncle Alick.

"Mr. Parmalee will be after you to preach for him next Sunday."

"And I shall do so very willingly, but to-day I shall be very thankful neither to preach nor practice in that sense. Do we walk or ride to church?"

"We walk always in pleasant weather. It is only a mile. Come, children, you must not sit talking any longer, or we shall not be ready."

The walk to church was a very pleasant one down the valley. A good part of the way was by the bank of the clear little river which ran through Holford, and was pleasantly shaded by birch and pine trees, while two or three points gave beautiful views of the mountains which "stood round about" the pretty village.

"'Look how the hills on every side Jerusalem enclose,'"

quoted Doctor Campbell. "I am always reminded of that verse when I come down this road, though these green, shady hills are not much like the arid mountains round Jerusalem."

"And you have seen Lebanon and Carmel since you were here last?" remarked Alick.

"Yes, and the mountains of Moab and Olympus and Ararat, and many a famous height besides."

"There is where I envy you," said Alick—"I mean your travels all over the world. I believe I want to see Lebanon as much as ever Moses did. If I had my wish, I would travel seven years."

"Why, Uncle Alick, I never supposed you cared for any such thing," said Marion, with not a very polite emphasis. "I never supposed you thought of anything but crops and cattle, you seem always so contented with our humdrum way of living."

"You don't quite know Uncle Alick all through, Marie, for as long as you have lived with him," answered Alick, good-humouredly.

"But if you like to travel so much, why don't you?"

"When you are as old as I am, you will know that the next best thing to having what you like is liking what you have. Pray, what do you suppose would have become of the farm and the stock if I should indulge my fancy for wandering all over the world? So I do my travelling with newspapers and books and stereoscopic views."

"Of which last I have brought you a bushel, more or less," said Duncan. "One thing I can tell you, Marie: if you don't like what you have, you will find you will never have what you like."

"I don't understand you, Uncle Duncan."

"Consider the saying as a wise oracle, to be worked out at your leisure," said Doctor Campbell. "How does your church missionary society prosper, Alick?"

Alick answered, and the two men walked on, engaged in earnest conversation, while Marion, instead of considering her uncle's oracle, began wondering whether she had not said something foolish—something which would lower her in Uncle Duncan's estimation.

As they drew near the village they overtook Therese.

"I thought you were going to stay at home over Sunday?" said Marion.

"So did I," answered Therese, "but mother thought there would be a storm this afternoon; and besides, I don't like to miss the Sunday school. You have company, haven't you?"

"Yes; my uncle and aunt from Syria."

"What, the missionaries? How nice! Oh, Marion, do you think he will talk to the Sunday school? Miss Oliver said perhaps he would when he came. And have you asked him about our girl—little Rachel, you know?" said Therese, with sparkling eyes and true French volubility.

"How you do ask questions, Therese! Uncle and aunt came only last night, and I have not had time to ask them everything," said Marion, who in truth had never thought of little Rachel. "I dare say my uncle will give a lecture or do something of that kind; missionaries always do."

"How does your class collection come on? Ours is almost made up," said Therese.

"I supposed Kitty Tremaine's class would have finished first because she gives so much herself," said Marion; "our teacher, Mrs. Buckley, gives only ten cents a Sunday."

"Kitty gives only five, I know."

"Why, Therese Beaubien! As rich as they are, to give only five cents a Sunday! Well, I would be ashamed."

"I don't think they are so very rich, Marion," said Therese; "Kitty has only a dollar a month of pocket-money, besides the six dollars a year she gets from her uncle in New York, which she keeps for Christmas. I think if she gives away so much of her income, she does pretty well, don't you?"

"I didn't think of that," said Marion; "but her mother might give her more!"

"Yes, but then it would not be her contribution, you see, and now it is."

"It is miserable to be obliged to calculate so closely, anyhow," said Marion, impatiently. "I do hate to think about every cent I spend. Uncle Duncan visited a gentleman in Scotland who has a million dollars a year."

"Oh, Marion!"

"Yes, he has, and more than that."

"It must be very nice," said Therese. "But, Marion, I don't call you poor. What would you do if you had to work for seventy-five cents a week, as I do?"

"I wouldn't live at all," said Marion.

"Yes, but you would have to, whether you liked it or not," said Therese, shrewdly. "People are not asked whether they will live or not. They are set down in their lot and left to make the best of it."

"Eh, little lass, how is that? Left?" said old Hector, who was nearer than the girls thought, and whose hearing was as sharp as ever, notwithstanding his great age.

Therese turned round, blushing and smiling. She had a great reverence for the old man and always felt pleased and flattered when he talked with her, as he often did. In fact, there was a very warm friendship between the old Highlander and the little French girl, despite the difference in their ages.

"Why, yes, I suppose so," said she, doubtfully, in answer to his question.

"I would think a bit more anent that matter," said Hector. "That would be a dreary faith to sit down with, my dawtie—not much better than that of the old heathen philosophers, poor souls! But here we are at the kirk door even now. Take the thought with you, and see what you will make of it before we meet again. It is a matter worth thinking of, I can assure you, lassie."

So, you see, Marion and Therese had each her own problem to consider. But the two treated the matter very differently. Marion wondered what Uncle Duncan meant, then tossed the whole subject aside into a dark closet of her mind, and fell to thinking what a fine thing it would be to have such an income as the duke of Argyle. Some time, perhaps, she may clear out—or, as Hector would say, "redd up,"—this same dark closet, and find various matters hidden therein.

Therese, to continue the figure, laid her problem on a shelf in plain sight, that she might often turn her eyes toward it as she went about her daily toil.

There was quite an excitement when Mr. Parmalee proclaimed at the close of Sunday school that Doctor Campbell would give a missionary lecture in the church on Wednesday evening, and that Mrs. Campbell would meet the girls of the missionary band at the parsonage on Saturday afternoon at two o'clock.

"Won't it be nice?" said Therese, with sparkling eyes.

"Very," answered Marion, but she did not seem particularly interested in the matter.

"Marion has had the advantage of us," said Kitty Tremaine; "she has had the first news. Did your aunt bring us a photograph of little Rachel, Marion? She said she would if she could."

"I don't know," said Marion, in the same dreamy way. And then, waking up a little, "I couldn't ask her everything all in a minute, you know. There were plenty of things to talk about, without beginning on missions the first thing. Just think how long it is since aunt has seen any of her friends! I do hope I have some consideration," said Marion with her grand air.

"I dare say you never thought of it," said Lizzy Gates.

"Well, and if she didn't, it is no wonder," returned Kitty, seeing from Marion's manner that Lizzy had, as usual, hit the mark with her conjecture.

"Not a bit of harm," answered Lizzy, laughing. "Oh, Marion, where did you get your watch? Did your aunt bring it to you?"

"Yes; Mr. Van Alstine sent it to me from New York," answered Marion, displaying her treasure.

"How pretty!" "And your name on it, and all!" "What a nice man your father-in-law must be!" said one and another.

"I should be looking to see what time it was a dozen times in an hour if it was mine," said Lizzy. "Let us see yours, Kitty."

Kitty produced the one she wore, an old-fashioned open-faced watch with ornaments of coloured gold and some very curious engraving on the back.

"But that isn't your grand one," said Lizzy.

"I mean the little green one with all the diamonds in the back."

"Oh, I don't wear that; mamma says it is altogether too fine for a school-girl, and I must keep it till I am grown up. So I leave it safely in its box, and use this, which Aunt gave me. And to tell the truth, I like this a great deal better. But yours is lovely, Marion—just the very thing."

"Such is life," said Lizzy, assuming a tragic air; "one person riots in watches, and the next has only an eight-day clock—perhaps only a brass one which needs winding every night. Here comes Julia Parmalee. Julia, have you heard any more of the mission meeting? Are we to bring our work, or what?"

"You can bring what if you like, but I would choose the work," said Julia. "Anyhow, mother hopes you will all come prepared to stay to tea, and we want to send to all the girls who are not here. Marion, can you get word to the Bryants?"

"Yes, but they won't come. Mr. Bryant doesn't believe in giving money to foreign missions."

"What does he believe in giving money to? Does anybody know?" asked Lizzy.

"Hush, young woman! Restrain your intellect, and don't be satirical. Anyhow, Marion, we will give them the chance, and perhaps they will come for once."

"Especially if they know it is a tea-fight," said Lizzy the irrepressible.

"Lizzy, I shall ask my father to take you in hand and give you a lecture if you don't behave better. Come, now, be good. Will you undertake to tell Eliza Bridgeman? You can't say she doesn't care for missions, and she isn't here to-day."

"No, indeed! She cares for everything that is good, poor little dear! I will not only tell her of the meeting, but I will coax Miss Perkins to let her come. Now, is there anybody else?"

"Nobody that I can think of. Father will give out the notice in church this afternoon, and we shall talk it all over in school. Here comes Matty McRae; I must ask her specially. Matty, you will be sure to come to the meeting at our house Saturday, won't you, and please tell all the district school girls?"

"I shall not do any such thing, Miss Julia Parmalee, so there!" answered Matty, with a movement of her whole person which I don't know how to describe otherwise than as a flounce. "You may get some one else to do your errands for you; and as for me, I am too proud to go where I am not wanted."

The girls looked at each other, and Julia answered, gently,—

"But we do want you, Matilda. Why should you think we don't?"

"Because I know you all feel above me; you Crocker school girls think yourselves above all the rest of the world. I think I am as good as you are any day, if I don't wear a gold watch. And I must say, as for the missionaries, I think, when they are able to give away gold watches to their nieces, they are able to support themselves."

"Oh!" said Lizzy, in a tone which implied "Now I understand."

"But, Matilda, neither my aunt nor uncle gave me the watch," said Marion. "It was sent me by my father-in-law, Mr. Van Alstine."

"Oh yes, so you say now! And you couldn't keep quiet about it, but must look at it once in ten minutes all Sunday school time. I do hate such ostentation."

"Matty, did you ever have a loose tooth?" asked Therese.

"Yes, I suppose so; what of it?" answered Matilda, forgetting her anger for the moment in the oddity of the question.

"And didn't you keep touching it with your tongue or feeling it every few minutes?"

"Yes, I suppose so; every one does."

"Well, was that because you were proud of it?"

All the girls laughed, and Lizzy exclaimed, "Well done, Therese! That is what Miss Oliver would call an apt and pertinent illustration."

"You had better mind your own business, Therese Beaubien," said Matilda. "I don't think Tone Beaubien's daughter has any business crowding herself in with decent people, anyhow. Well, there! You needn't all look at me as if I had committed murder," she added, with an uneasy laugh, as she felt the glances of contempt which fell upon her from all sides. "I shouldn't have said anything if she hadn't begun it. I do think so, and a great many other people besides me."

"Then you and your 'great many other people' had better keep your thoughts to yourselves," said Lizzy Gates, angrily. "You—Well, there, Julia! I won't begin, so you needn't look at me so. Never mind, Therese dear; nobody cares for what such people say."

"I think this missionary business is all nonsense, any way, and so does pa," continued Matilda, feeling, to do her justice, rather ashamed of her meanness and willing to divert attention from herself. "Pa says he should come to church more only for this everlasting begging. He says, too, that it is all nonsense to take the Sunday school collection from the children and then give it to foreign missions. It ought to go to support the school, and I think so too. I think we might just as well use our forty dollars to buy new Sunday school books with."

"But where would be the charity in that, Matilda?" asked Marion. "It would be just taking money out of one pocket to put it into the other."

"Or we could have a nice Christmas festival," continued Matilda. "Pa says he gave a dollar and a half last year, and the presents we had off the tree didn't come to more than a dollar."

"Because all the nicest and prettiest things went to the poor children," said Julia Parmalee, who never lost patience in explaining matters.

"Well, anyhow, I am not going to give money to help buy gold watches for anybody's niece," said Matilda, and with that she departed.

"Now she will tell that story to her aunt, Miss Perkins, and it will go all over the town," said Lizzy; "and I dare say she won't let Eliza come to the meeting, after all."

"But then I told her just how it was," said Marion.

"Yes, much she will care for that, or Miss Perkins, either. Never mind, Marion; it wasn't your fault."

"I wish I hadn't worn my watch at all," said Marion; "I am sure I didn't mean to make any display of it. But that's just the way it always is," added Marion, with a sigh. "There is never anything nice in the world but somebody comes to spoil it."

"'I never nursed a dear gazelle

To glad me with its soft black eye

But when it came to know me well,

And love me—'

"Somebody was sure to say 'My uncle gave it to me,'" quoted Lizzie, slightly altering the verse to suit the occasion. "Dear me, Marion! If you are going to let your pleasure in your watch be spoiled so easily, you don't deserve to have it."

"And as for the story, it is only one more," added Julia. "I wouldn't mind about it. I don't believe Matilda will influence any one who would have given anything. Kitty, how does your class get on?"

"Oh, pretty well," answered Kitty. "The bother of my class is that as soon as the children really begin to learn anything I have to send them away. I sent out three of my nicest children this morning—two little Lenoirs and your cousin Madelaine, Therese. Why, where is Therese? I thought she was here."

"She has gone home, I fancy," said Julia. "Poor child! I am so sorry for her."

"I do think it is the meanest thing that ever was in the world to twit that child with her father," said Lizzy Gates, with her usual emphasis. "Just as though she was to blame!"

"It is a shame," said Kitty. "Miss Perkins asked mother if we were not afraid to trust Therese about the house. She said she should always be expecting her to get up in the night and let her father in at the back door. But I think Therese will live it down. She has a great deal of force and of real principle too."

"Miss Perkins needn't say anything. One reason why Lenore Beaubien has got away so much of her custom is that people who took lace and velvet to Miss Perkins thought they didn't get it all back again."

"Hush, Lizzy! You shouldn't say so."

"Well, perhaps not, after your father's sermon on evil speaking this morning. I can't help being vexed for Therese, and she never says a word for herself. But there goes the bell for afternoon church. You are not vexed at me, are you, Marion?"

"No, of course not," said Marion; "only vexed at having made such a fuss."

"It was not you that made the fuss. I wouldn't mind about it, anyhow. Don't let it spoil your Sunday, as mother says to me when anything disagreeable happens."

"I don't see why Kitty Tremaine should have a class in Sunday school any more than the rest of us," said Marion to Julia when the rest had gone and they were left alone together for a few minutes. "She is only six months older than I am."

"Well, you know it begun three years ago, because Kitty was the only one in the school besides her mother and Miss Oliver who could speak French," * said Julia. "Kitty would like very well to give up her class, and come into school, but your uncle won't hear of it because she manages the infants so nicely."

* See "Kitty's Christmas Tree," American Sunday School Union.

"Oh yes, Uncle Alick thinks she is the eighth wonder of the world. I don't see anything so remarkable about her. Just think how intimate she used to be with that horrid Fanny Duskin, and what scrapes she used to get into."

"But that was a long time ago, Marion. Kitty has not been in a scrape in school for more than two years. I don't mean, of course, that she never does wrong, but I do think she tries to be a consistent Christian."

"Your geese are all swans, Julia."

"Well, that is better than thinking all my swans geese. But, Marion, if you really want to try teaching, why don't you ask Mr. McGregor to let you have Emily Sibley's class? You know she won't be here after this Sunday, and you couldn't wish for a nicer class than that."

"I mean to ask him about it this very day," said Marion.

"I wonder what old Mr. McGregor meant by what he said to me this morning?" thought Therese, as she brushed away a few tears, "I'm sure my lot is a hard one enough, and I don't see any best to be made of it. I ought not to say I am left, either, I suppose, when I have so many good friends. I wonder if that was what he meant?"

CHAPTER V.

LONG TALKS.

AS Marion walked home from Sunday school, she resolved to ask Aunt Christian about Rachel "and all the rest of it," as she said, rather contemptuously.

"I might have had the first news to tell the girls if I had had any wit. How stupid they must have thought me not to know a single thing about it! And my watch, too! It was so silly in me to look at it so many times, as if I had never seen one before. I saw Mrs. Bartlett smile, I know. I don't believe Kitty thinks any more of hers than if it were a handkerchief. I suppose her aunt in Paris sent her the diamond-set watch. I would give a great deal to know whether Kitty really is proud of her grand rich relations; though as to that, her connections are not so grand as ours. Just think! The duke himself is a kind of cousin of ours."

And then Marion fell into a kind of reverie or waking dream, in which she represented herself as going abroad, making the acquaintance of dukes and other titled people, marrying some great personage—she did not quite decide whether he should be a prince or some English nobleman—and finally meeting Kitty Tremaine and patronizing her graciously.

Marion passed a great deal of her time in dreams of this kind, in which she always enacted the heroine, performing incredible and often impossible feats of self-sacrifice, courage, and benevolence, running the most frightful risks and going through the most desperate adventures, but always coming out at last in a blaze of honour, riches, and high station.

She enacted every heroine of every story she read, but her favourite character was entirely one of her own creation, namely, "the heiress of the McGregors." This young lady was a damsel of the most varying fortunes. When all went well with Marion in school or at home, the heiress of the McGregors had very nice times. But when things went wrong—when Miss Oliver found fault with her for not having her lessons, for blotting her exercise-book, or inking her fingers, when Aunt Baby insisted on her sweeping her room and mending her stockings, or declined to take her advice about the arrangement of household matters—then the fortunes of the heiress were overcast, then did her wicked uncle strive to make her marry the objectionable cousin who wanted her property, then did he shut her up in the gloomy chamber with barred windows and set the wicked old woman to spy upon her motions and insult her in all possible ways. The heiress of the McGregors it was who had occasioned Marion's being kept after school, and in general it must be said that this much persecuted young lady was responsible for most of her forgetfulness of present duty.

But Marion had taken a book from the library that day which was destined to open a new life to the heiress of the McGregors. She opened it at first without any great expectation of interest or amusement, but soon became so absorbed in its pages as to take no heed of anything else. She read through it the first time at express speed, and then, turning back, she read it more leisurely—a very good plan, be it observed, when a book is worth reading at all. She was so absorbed in the volume that she forgot her intention of learning all about Rachel and the school from her aunt; and though Doctor and Mrs. Campbell were talking about the mission all the evening, she never heard nor heeded till her grandfather said:

"What do you think of that, Marion? That would be worse than the soap-making that you complain of."

"Think of what? Oh, it would be very nice," said Marion, looking up absently. "I should like it very much;" and then, pettishly, as every one laughed, "I don't know what you are talking about."

"So it seems," said Aunt Christian. "I think you would hardly say you liked the work your uncle has been describing."

"Marion was reading her Sunday school book," said Aunt Baby, always ready to excuse and shield her darling. "What is it about, Marie?"

"I don't think you would be interested in it, Aunt Baby," said Marion, rather superciliously; "but you can read it if you like."

"Let me see," said Uncle Alick, stretching out his hand for the book, which Marion rather unwillingly parted with.

"Who buys your books?" asked Doctor Campbell.

"Mrs. Tremaine and Miss Oliver, usually," answered Alick. "We had a large quantity given us this spring, however, by a lady who spent last summer here, and I see this is one of them. It was very kind in her, but I must confess I have my doubts about some of the books. I think I will ask Mrs. Tremaine to look them over."

"Yes, and then she will be sure to take out all the interesting books, just as she did 'Madeline Trevor' last summer," said Marion.

"'Madeline Trevor'!" repeated Mrs. Campbell, in amazement. "You don't mean to say that you had that in the Sunday school library?"

"Even so," answered Alick; "it was given us, as this was, by one of the summer visitors who have invaded us of late years, and went through several hands before Mrs. Tremaine stopped it."

"And I never could see why she needed to stop it at all," said Marion; "it was so interesting, and had a great deal of religion in it."

"And a good deal else, unluckily. However, I cannot say I have found any harm in these books, though a great many of them are rather feeble."

"This isn't feeble, at any rate," said Marion, thinking, at the same time, "How absurd of uncle to think himself capable of judging of books!"

"Aunt Christian, why haven't you ever written a Sunday school book?" asked Marion, presently. "I think you might make such an interesting story about the schools out there."

"Because there are only twenty-four hours in the day, my dear; and when each of these hours is already filled as full as it will hold, there is no room for more, even as when a pint cup already holds a pint of milk you can by no means put a pint of molasses therein."

"I have often wished that somebody would do that same thing, however," remarked Doctor Campbell. "I think, if such a book were successful, it might do a great deal toward rousing an interest in the mission work."

"Yes; Marion's hint is a good one, and I will certainly take it into consideration," said Mrs. Campbell. "You see, Marion, the only person who could write such a book is one of the teachers who have been engaged in the work of the school and lived among the people; but I will certainly think the matter over."

The next day Mrs. Campbell was engaged in unpacking and disposing of her possessions and distributing the presents she had brought home. Marion was delighted with a string of large and finely-cut amber beads and a bottle of genuine otto of rose, nor was the heiress of the McGregors above being gratified with a box of Rabat-Lookoom. For the benefit of such unfortunate people as have no friends in Turkey, I will explain that Rabat-Lookoom is a delectable kind of marmalade or paste, made, I believe, of the juice of figs and other fruits. It is known to city confectioners as Turkish fig-paste.

"Are you going to school to-day?" asked Mrs. Campbell.

"Yes, I suppose so," answered Marion, in a somewhat discontented tone. "If one stays out, one is behind all the others just so far. Then, when it comes to review day, there is just so much more to do, for Miss Oliver never will let us miss a lesson."

"Miss Oliver is a very thorough teacher," remarked Aunt Baby. "There, Marion! Your dinner-basket is all ready, and I wish at noon-time you would go round to Barton's and ask him to send up a barrel of flour, six pounds of white sugar, and a box each of cloves, pepper, and cinnamon. Can you remember all that?"

"Yes, I suppose so," answered Marion. "Good-bye, Aunt Christian."

"If I finish my unpacking in time, I will walk down to meet you," said Mrs. Campbell. "I have a string of olive-wood beads for Grandfather Beaubien which I must carry myself. I suppose the old man is living still?"

"Yes, but very old and feeble," answered Miss Barbara. "Tone's disgrace nearly killed him."

"Has he become a Protestant?"

"Not avowedly, but he comes to church sometimes in fine weather and reads the French Bible which Mrs. Tremaine gave him. I think the old man is a very good Christian according to his lights. He has brought up his children well. Poor Tone is the only black sheep in the flock, and old Michael has been wonderfully kind and patient with his daughter-in-law, poor perverse woman that she is."

Marion had reached the school-room door before she again remembered that she had forgotten to ask anything about Rachel.

"There! now the girls will all be at me again," she said to herself. "One good thing is that I have errands enough to do to keep me busy all through noon-time; and besides, I can tell them that Aunt Christian would rather tell the story herself."

It did occur to Marion that this was not quite an honest account of the affair, but Marion was becoming rather careless in the matter of exact truthfulness. This is very apt to be the case with people who are constantly obliged to make excuses for themselves, and Marion's conduct had needed a great many excuses of late.

The girls received her account of the matter very readily, however, the more that a new subject of interest had arisen which in some degree eclipsed the little Syrian maiden whom the girls of Holford Sunday school had been keeping at the boarding-school in Beiruyt for the last two years.

"Just think, Marion! Tone Beaubien has been seen again. Cousin Sam was up on Blue Hill looking for a stray colt, and met a man who he knows was Tone, though he had a great beard on. Sam says he recognized him in a minute. He used to know Tone very well when they were boys."

"Did he speak to him?"

"No. He was going to, but Tone—if it was Tone—dodged aside among the bushes, and Sam did not see him again. I dare say he didn't look very closely."

"And no shame to him if he didn't," said Kitty Tremaine. "I hope Sam was mistaken, for poor Therese's sake. It will be a terrible thing for her if her father turns up again."

"I should think your mother would be afraid to have her in the house," said Laura Bryant, who had told the story. "Mother says she shall never have Mrs. Beaubien to wash again."

"I think that is hardly fair," said Kitty. "Mrs. Beaubien is not to blame if her husband has come back; and, after all, it may be a mistake. One man with a beard looks very much like another. I know when we lived in Paris I used to think all Frenchmen looked exactly alike."

"How fond Kitty is of bringing in 'when we were in Paris'!" whispered Laura to Marion, who nodded without paying much attention to what was said.

"But really, Kitty," continued Laura, "do you believe your folks will keep Therese if her father is about? I should think your mother would be awful scared."

"Mother is not easily scared," answered Kitty, quietly. "We are all very fond of Therese, and we shall need her more than ever, because Cousin Tilly is going to the Cure for a while on account of her sprained ankle."

"Do you and Therese really talk French together, and all that?" questioned Laura, who had considerably more curiosity about her neighbours' affairs than about her lessons, and who was especially interested in all the doings of the Tremaine household.

"I don't know what 'all that' means," answered Kitty, smiling; "we certainly do both speak and read French together. Mother says it is good practice for me, and that as French is Therese's native tongue, so to speak, it is a pity that she should lose it. It may be very useful to her some time, and to us too."

"Well, I wouldn't do it," said Laura. "If I had a servant, she should keep her place."

"Therese never gets out of hers," said Kitty. "She is the best mannered girl I almost ever saw. But I am very sorry to hear this rumour about her father on more accounts than one. Here comes Miss Oliver. Laura, if you don't want to be reminded of your place, I advise you to get down off the top of the desk."

At recess Miss Oliver called Marion to her side:

"What about your arithmetic lesson, Marion? Have you written it out, as I told you?"

Marion displayed her book.

"That is right, and very neatly done," said Miss Oliver. "Marion, my dear, why won't you always give me the pleasure of praising you?"

Marion looked down and played with her watch-chain.

"There is not a girl in the school with better abilities than yourself," continued Miss Oliver, "nor one who can, if she chooses, make herself more agreeable, and yet there is hardly one of your age who does not stand better than yourself. Why is it?"

Marion murmured that she didn't know how it was.

"I think I know," said Miss Oliver: "it is because you do not take pains. Your mind is not on your work. I often see you sitting with a book before you and looking out of the window for half an hour together. I do not pretend to know what you are thinking of at such times, but certainly your thoughts are not where they ought to be—on your present duties.

"You are losing two very precious things, my child, time and opportunity—two things which, once lost, can be found no more in this world, no more, perhaps, in the whole universe. You are abusing the kindness of your grandfather, who keeps you at school, you are a constant worry and annoyance to me, you set a bad example to the others, you help to lower the character of the school, and you are ruining your own. Now, what am I to do with you?"

Miss Oliver paused a moment, and then went on more gravely still:

"I can tell you what I shall do, Marion: there are two months more remaining of this term. I shall give you those two months in which to turn over a new leaf. If I do not see a very marked improvement at the end of that time, I shall lay the matter before the trustees and ask them to remove you from the school. It will grieve me to the heart to take this course on your own account, and still more on that of your friends, but I shall certainly do it."

Never in all her life had Marion been so utterly mortified and humiliated. She was crushed not only by the weight of the blow, but by its entire unexpectedness. She had somehow gone on flattering herself that she was a favourite with Miss Oliver and a person of great consequence in the school, and the thought that she could be expelled never entered her mind. But she knew that Miss Oliver was a woman of her word, and that her representation was all powerful with the trustees of the little endowed school. Oh, if she should be expelled, what a dreadful disgrace it would be!

Marion would have liked to escape to her usual refuge of considering herself persecuted, but it would not do. Conscience was aroused, and forced her to look the matter steadily in the face. She dared not accuse Miss Oliver of injustice; she knew it was all true. For the last year and more she had been steadily falling behindhand in her lessons; she had evaded her duties all she possibly could; and even when she had learned a lesson, it made no permanent impression, but had passed through her mind like water through a sieve, because she bestowed no after-thought upon it. If there was a puzzle in the arithmetic or algebra lesson or a hard line in Virgil, Kitty Tremaine, Lizzie Gates, and Julia Parmalee, and some others, would very likely get together after school and find a real pleasure in disentangling the hard knot.

But not so Marion. "I could not do it," or "I did not understand it, Miss Oliver," satisfied her. In her character of "the heiress of the McGregors" Marion was endowed with every accomplishment, from playing the harp down to embroidering tapestry, while the real Marion seemed likely to be left without even the decent beginnings of an education.

"Well, I can't help it," said Marion, pettishly, to herself, at last; "Miss Oliver might make the lessons more interesting." And then came the reflection, "The lessons are interesting to the others; why not to you? Lizzy Gates is quite as bright; Kitty Tremaine has seen ten times more of the world. Her mother is a very accomplished woman, and able to take Kitty to New York, or even to Paris, for her education, and yet she keeps her with Miss Oliver." Marion was obliged to abandon that line of defence, and she could not at once find any other to which she might betake herself.

"Well, I will turn over a new leaf—I really will," said Marion. "It would be perfectly dreadful to be turned out of school. If I could only go somewhere else, I know I should do better. I have been to Miss Oliver so long. But I don't see how that is ever to come about. Grandfather says he can't afford to let me have French lessons this term, and I don't believe Miss Oliver would allow it, either. She would be sure to bring up all my bad Latin lessons and those horrible irregular verbs and prepositions governing the accusative. Oh dear! How unhappy I am! And there are all Aunt Baby's errands that I must do this noon instead of reading my book. However, that is just as well, for I should not dare to let Miss Oliver see me reading a story-book. Oh what a plague it is! I never can have half a chance."

Marion was so far impressed with Miss Oliver's words that she did every one of her errands and got through her afternoon's lessons without a single failure. She was walking homeward, reading as she went, when she came upon Mrs. Campbell.

"Why, Aunt Christian, is this you? How did you come here?" asked Marion.

"Really, Marie, I am half affronted," answered Mrs. Campbell, smiling; "didn't I tell you I was coming down to meet you as you came home?"

"Yes, to be sure; it was very nice in you," said Marion, trying to appear glad, when in truth she would rather have been alone. Marion thought it was one out of many signs of her superiority that she "loved solitude." "Have you been anywhere in the village?"

"Yes; I called on Michael Beaubien and saw several of my old acquaintances in the French settlement. I see a great change there, Marion."

"Yes, every one says so."

"But the old man did not seem so cheerful as he used to be," continued Mrs. Campbell. "I fancy he has something on his mind."

"Very likely," answered Marion. "I dare say Sam Bryant has told him the story of his seeing Tone up on Blue Hill, Saturday. I hope it is not true, but Laura says Sam is quite sure. I shall be afraid to stir away from home if he is round, shall not you? He is such a desperate character."

"Really, Marie, I have lived so much among desperate characters of late years that I think I have become rather hardened to them. If you imagine Tone Beaubien multiplied by five hundred, you will have some faint notion of our neighbours at our last country station. But I hope with you that Sam may be mistaken, for it would be a great misfortune to the whole family if Tone should come back. That is one trouble of one member of a family taking to evil courses. The disgrace of one is reflected on all the rest."

Marion felt as if her aunt had given her a slap without meaning it. She hastily changed the subject:

"Have you ever read this book, aunt? I think it is perfectly splendid."

Mrs. Campbell took the book and looked at it:

"Yes, we had it on the ship, and I read it while on board."

"And didn't you like it very much? Don't you think Maria is well drawn?" Then, without waiting for an answer, "I think it was grand for her to take her career into her own hands and insist on doing something worth while, instead of wasting her time and talents in that humdrum old place with stupid people. If I could only see something like that opening before me, I should have some courage to live," said Marion, pathetically "as it is, I haven't one bit."

Mrs. Campbell had not been teaching since she was sixteen without becoming acquainted with the genus girl in almost all its varieties. "Oh, you sentimental little gosling!" was her inward thought, but she showed no signs even of amusement.

"But, Marion, if I recollect rightly, these humdrum people had taken Maria when she was an orphan child, and had stinted themselves to give her support and education. Don't you think she owed them some duty? Was it a very exalted course of action to go away from them the moment she was able, leaving her benefactors, in their old age and loneliness, unaided and uncomforted? Was it right to treat them in that way?"

"One's first duty is one's own development and improvement," said Marion, grandiloquently, yet with a certain uneasy consciousness that the words and Miss Oliver's late lecture did not go well together.

"Do you think so? I don't. I read that no man liveth or dieth to himself, and that whosoever will come after the divine Pattern of all must deny himself and take up his cross daily. I think, moreover, that the best way of improving ourselves is simply to do our duty as it is presented to us."

"I don't believe much in duty, anyhow," said Marion, shifting her ground. "I think the ruling principle should be love, and not duty."

"Love of what?" asked Mrs. Campbell.

Marion was not prepared with an answer.

"I don't like this opposing of love and duty which I find is so much the fashion," continued Mrs. Campbell. "They are no more opposed than a man's flesh and bones are opposed, if you will forgive a doctor's wife for using such an anatomical figure. The skeleton alone would never make a man, but the man would be worth little without it. He would be like the Boneless in grandfather's story—a poor crawling creature, quite unable to stand upright, and having, moreover, if I remember rightly, a very uncomfortable habit of strangling people. As to your heroine, Marie, I must say, at the risk of lowering myself in your opinion, that I do not at all admire her."

"But she accomplished so much, Aunt Christian. Just think how she helped those people who were afflicted with the insanity of their daughter, and trained the children when their mother had spoiled them and all the rest. Was not that better than spending her life in making shirts and butter and reading the newspaper to her uncle?"

"No, Marie, I don't think it was, not if the shirts and the butter, and so on, were the work which Providence had given her."

"Well, I can't agree with you," said Marion; "and I don't think you are very consistent with yourself, Aunt Christian. Why didn't you stay at home?"

"Because, my dear, I had my living to earn. Times were hard in those days. The farm produced little, and there was no market for that little. Mother was very delicate, and the hive would not hold honey for us all. I would gladly have stayed at home; but as I said, I had my living to earn. I always expected to come home when Aunt Baby married, but after her great disappointment there was an end of that, and then Eiley came home to be cared for."

"Why, Aunt Christian, you don't mean to say that Aunt Baby ever had a love-affair?" exclaimed Marion. "I should as soon expect to hear such a story of old Ball."

Marion looked up as she spoke, and encountered a glance from Christian's fine gray eyes which made her feel at once that she had spoken improperly.

"I don't like to hear you speak in that way of my sister, Marion," said Christian, very gravely. "Setting aside your own personal debt of gratitude for her care and kindness ever since you were a baby, there is not a woman in the world more worthy of respect than Barbara McGregor. Yes, Barbara had a love-affair which came to a sorrowful termination. She was troth-plight to a very fine young man named Fergus Kerr, who was mate of an East Indiaman. He engaged for one more voyage before he should be married, with the promise of being promoted to the command of a fine new vessel on his return. The vessel sailed with every prospect of a favourable voyage, and was never heard of again.

"You have a lively imagination, Marion. I leave you to represent to yourself all the agony of suspense and despair before Barbara settled down into her present state of cheerful content and daily self-sacrifice—a self-sacrifice which has grown so complete that she has ceased to be aware of it herself. I have known many good women, but I never knew one better than Barbara."

Mrs. Campbell spoke with an earnestness which brought tears into her eyes. The two walked on in silence a little way, and then Marion broke out again:

"After all, Aunt Christian, all this does not reconcile me to my present way of life, this round of petty details which takes up all my time and is so belittling and cramping. I am sure I am willing to help, and I do. I do half the errands for the family, and more too. I help about the butter and feed the hens and churn. I am willing to sacrifice myself to any extent, but—"

"What do these errands consist in?" asked Aunt Christian.

"Oh, in many little things—in buying sugar and tea, and all such things as we buy at the store, in getting grandfather snuff and going to the post-office, and so on. I am willing to do them, too, but I do feel it a great sacrifice to occupy my mind and time with such trifles."

"But, Marion, don't you eat and drink your share of the sugar and tea and spices and flour? And do not the dairy and the hens help to buy your new frocks and hats, and so on?"

"Yes, I suppose so, of course."

"Well, then, excuse me, my dear, but really is there any such great self-sacrifice in buying your own dinner or your own hats and gloves? Are you not working for yourself all the time?"

Marion was silent. She had not thought of matters in that light.

"As for these details of which you complain," continued Mrs. Campbell, "they belong to every kind of work as much as to housework, and are often of a much more disagreeable character. I assure you I have found it so. You don't like sweeping. How would you like to superintend a school of twenty girls not one of whom had ever known the use of a nail-brush or a fine comb, to say naught of other troubles? How would you like to associate all day with such people?"

"Anyhow, I should feel that I was bringing something to pass."

"You are bringing, in the end, just the same thing to pass in one case as in the other, and that is your duty," said Mrs. Campbell, "the thing which your heavenly Father gives you to do, and which you please and honour him in doing. That is the secret, my lassie—to learn to do everything to and for him; and believe me, my child, he is by far the easiest master we can have. It not seldom happens that we do our best in this world, and, after all, we are misunderstood, and to the eyes of men we may seem to fail utterly, but our heavenly Father never misunderstands us, and no work which is done for him ever fails. Here we are at last. How slowly we have walked!"

Marion was not sorry. She had lately become very impatient of any religious conversation, especially when it appealed to herself.

"Aunt Christian doesn't understand me any better than the rest," she said to herself, when she went up to her room. "Nobody ever does. If my father had lived, he would have felt for me. I suppose I am like him, and that sets them all against me. Oh dear! I wish I could only have a chance I would show them what was in me."

Nevertheless, the events of the day made so much impression that Marion learned all her lessons for next morning before "the heiress of the McGregors" was allowed to enter upon a career of active usefulness among her tenantry, for which she was bitterly persecuted by her wicked uncle.

CHAPTER VI.

"WHERE CAN SHE BE?"

FOR two or three weeks Marion's lessons went on better. Bending all her powers of mind, which were by no means contemptible, to the construing and understanding of her lessons in Virgil, she made the remarkable and delightful discovery that she was reading poetry. Now, I am well aware that there are many teachers who either never make this discovery for themselves, or if they do by any chance find it out, they use every effort to conceal the fact from their unlucky pupils, and try to make those pupils consider the "sweet singers of old days" as only so much material for parsing.

But Miss Oliver was not such a teacher. She had a strong sense of beauty in all things; she had a correct and highly cultivated taste, and she gave her pupils the benefit thereof; she wished to make them readers as well as students. She gave them subjects for composition which involved study and consultation of books, and the school library books showed more signs of wear under her administration than they had ever done before. In short, Miss Oliver tried in every way to create and encourage a love of knowledge and literature for their own sake, and she succeeded. Under her management the Crocker school had become as good and useful as any institution in the whole State, and its scholarships began to be eagerly looked after.

On the Thursday evening before the missionary meeting, as Marion was walking slowly homeward, she was joined by Lizzy Gates. Lizzy had been one of Miss Oliver's early trials. Under the rule of old Miss Parsons, who was a kind of Queen Log, Lizzy had been allowed to do according to her own pleasure; and as she had little or no training at home, that pleasure was not of a very good kind. She was both violent tempered and deceitful—two qualities more commonly united than many people suppose. But Lizzy was gifted with strong natural sense. She began with more or less open rebellion, but she soon found she had met her match in Miss Oliver. She was first conquered, then she began to admire and at last ended by loving her conqueror with all her heart. Not only had she turned out a capital scholar, but she had become heart and soul a Christian; and barring some hastiness of speech, she walked very consistently.

"I am going up to your house, Marion," said Lizzy; "mother wants Miss Barbara's recipe for short-bread and some turkey eggs, so I told her I would walk up with you and get them."

"Can't you stay to tea?" asked Marion. "Do, and then you will see Aunt Christian and Uncle Duncan."

"Well, mother said she had no doubt I would if any one asked me, and perhaps I had better not disappoint her," answered Lizzy, laughing. "Here is Therese coming; let's wait for her."

"I wonder if she is going home? I should hardly think Mrs. Tremaine would allow it, now that her father is supposed to be about," said Marion.

"I don't believe Therese has heard the story, and probably Mrs. Tremaine doesn't wish that she should. Well, Therese where are you bound?"

"Home," answered Therese.

"You won't have much time."

"No, and I don't mean to stay a minute. Mrs. Tremaine told me to come back as soon as I could, because she wanted me. I left my French Testament at home, and I am going after it."

"You are very happy with Mrs. Tremaine, are you not?"

"Yes, indeed," answered Therese, earnestly. "No girl could have a better home, and then it is such a chance for me. Grandfather says I shall be very much to blame if I don't improve it."

"What do you mean by 'a chance'?" asked Marion. "What sort of 'a chance'?"

"Such a chance to learn," answered Therese. "Mrs. Tremaine gives me time to learn my lessons every day, and hears me say them herself. There are not many girls who have a better teacher than she is—not even Miss Oliver's girls, for as high as they hold their heads," concluded Therese, laughing. "You know Matty McRae says that Miss Oliver's girls are stuck-up to the skies."

"But what do you study?"

"Grammar one day and arithmetic the next. Then I read aloud both French and English, and write exercises when I have time. So, you see, I am getting on famously, and I am quite right in saying that very few girls have such a chance."

For a moment Marion remembered her own words about never having "a chance" with something like a pang of conscience.

"You must have to work very hard, do you not?" said she.

"Oh no, not so very; but I shall not have so much to do now Miss Crocker is going away. Oh dear! I do hope she will get well."

"Father says she has been very foolish—" Lizzy began; but Marion interrupted her:

"Oh yes, of course; Dr. Gates would think any one very foolish who went to the Cure."

Lizzy coloured and her eyes flashed at this certainly not very civil remark.

After a minute's silence, however, she answered quietly, though not without a certain emphasis,—

"If you had taken time to hear me out, Marion, perhaps you would have understood the matter better. What I meant to say was that father said Miss Crocker was very foolish to try to keep round on her lame foot when it was first hurt. He says if she had been content to keep it up on the sofa for a week, it would never have troubled her, and he is glad she is going to the Cure, because Doctor Henry will make her keep still."

"Miss Tilly knows that herself now," said Therese. "But she didn't think it was anything."

"Just so, but she ought to have believed what father told her. She might have had some confidence in him."

"She knows that too," said Therese. "She said yesterday to Kitty and me, 'Take warning by me, girls, and don't think yourselves so much wiser than every one else.'"

"But honestly, now, Therese, wouldn't you like better to go to school as we do?" asked Marion, after a minute or two of mortified silence.

"Of course I should," answered Therese. "Who wouldn't? I don't pretend to enjoy washing dishes or ironing or running up and down stairs so much as I do studying and reading story-books, but what then? I have not my choice in the matter. Somebody must work, and work is no hardship so long as one is strong and well and does not have too much of it. I do not work nearly as hard as Aunt Lenore or Aunt Madelaine."

"Lenore likes her work, too; I heard her say so," answered Lizzy.

"Yes, I know she does; she has a natural taste that way, and is very skilful in using her fingers. All our family are so," said Therese, with a little gentle pride. "Still, work is work, whether you like it or not, and it isn't pleasant to work when one would rather play or read."

"Yes; if one need only work when one felt like it, I shouldn't mind it so much," said Marion, with a sigh.

"If you only worked when you felt like it, you would never accomplish anything in the world," said Lizzy. "I am sure that plan doesn't answer with lessons at all. I soon found that out. I tried it with my music. I thought it would be dreadful to play when I didn't feel like it, and presently I discovered that I never did feel like doing the most important parts of my lessons, the scales and exercises. Now I just say to myself, 'If I don't have this lesson, Mr. Dundas will scold nineteen to the dozen when he comes, and that will provoke me and worry mother dreadfully.' So I go at it as I would at the clothes-wringer. It is the same with my compositions. If I wait till I feel like it, I am sure to be behindhand."

Now, Marion had been behindhand several times lately, and she chose to consider these words of Lizzy's as a hint at herself. It was a great mistake, for Lizzy was not a person to give hints of any sort. However, she drew into her shell and was very silent for the rest of the walk, while Lizzy and Therese chatted gayly of all sorts of things.

"Well, good-bye, girls. I suppose I shall see you on Saturday?" said Therese as they parted. "Are you going home pretty soon, Lizzy?"

"No; Marion has asked me to stay to tea," said Lizzy, who had never guessed the offence she had given. "Be sure you come on Saturday, Therese."

"How Mrs. Tremaine does spoil Therese!" said Marion, pettishly, as Therese went on her way. "She is growing as forward as can be. I don't think it is any kindness to her at all."

"Why, Marion, I think she is as sweet as can be," answered Lizzy, warmly; "and as to her being forward, who was there to be forward to? I'm sure she is as good as we are; why not?"

"But her father, Lizzy," said Marion, feeling that it would hardly answer to bring the heiress of McGregor under the eye of such an irreverent person as the doctor's daughter.

"Well, she isn't to blame for that, and I think it would be a shame to visit it on her, don't you, Miss Barbara?"

"Don't I what, lassie?" asked Miss Baby, who was very fond of Lizzy, though she did not hesitate to check her occasional forwardness. "Don't you see my brother and sister, Doctor and Mrs. Campbell? Come and speak to them now, like a lady. Christian will be glad to know your mother's daughter."

"Well, I beg your pardon, Miss Baby," said Lizzy, blushing as usual, but accepting the check with perfect good-humour. "You know I always must go headlong, as ma says; I did not see that any one was here."

"And I am sure you are Lizzy Webb's daughter," said Mrs. Campbell, coming forward; "you look exactly as she did when we used to go to school together."

"Yes, ma'am, I am Lizzy Webb Gates. Ma sent her love to you, and she is coming to see you as soon as baby is old enough to let her go out."

"And now what was it you desired my opinion upon? asked Miss Baby, when the presentations had been duly accomplished.

"Oh, nothing of any great consequence," answered Lizzy, feeling pretty sure that Marion would not care to have her remark repeated to her aunt. "I was saying that it would be wrong to blame or slight Therese Beaubien for the faults of her father."

"Very wrong and unfeeling. I hope nobody does it?"

"Well, I think some people do. Matty McRae downright insulted her last Sunday. She said Tone Beaubien's—Well, there! I won't repeat it, because I might not get the words just right, but she did throw it in her face, and I think it's very mean."

"It certainly was, but I should not expect a great deal of poor Matty. She has never had much 'chance,' as Marion says. But, my dear, you will stay to tea, won't you? You will have plenty of time to go home afterward."

Lizzy gladly accepted the invitation. She took off her bonnet and put her hair to rights, and was soon seated in the parlour, quite at her ease. Presently her tatting came out of her pocket, and the shuttle began to fly through her fingers in that deft way which is so easy to those who know it, and so incomprehensible to those who do not.

"I see that tatting is very much in fashion again," remarked Mrs. Campbell; "I think I must try to learn it. What do you say, Miss Lizzy? Will you teach me?"

"I will try," answered Lizzy; "but I can tell you beforehand it is one of the hardest things to teach or to learn in the world."

"Well, I will make a bargain with you. If you will make me learn tatting, I will teach you to make needle lace—an art which an Armenian lady made a great favour of imparting to me."

Lizzy consented, and the lesson went on amid much laughter from teacher and pupil. Marion looked on languidly. How could her aunt be so interested in such a trifle? How could Lizzy be so entirely at her ease with two strangers like Doctor and Mrs. Campbell?

"There is one thing, Lizzy, at which I am surprised," remarked Mrs. Campbell, presently—"one thing in which I may say I am a good deal disappointed. I have seen quite a number of the Crocker school girls, and not one of them has asked me a question about little Rachel or the school. I thought you took a great interest in the child. She does in you, I assure you."

"I am sure we do in her, Mrs. Campbell," answered Lizzy, very much surprised and a little offended. "We are all longing for Saturday to come that we may hear about her. But Marion said that you wanted nothing should be said about the matter till then, so of course I asked no questions."

Mrs. Campbell turned to Marion with a look of surprise.

"I did not say that, Lizzy," said Marion, feeling very much confused, for she had forgotten the whole matter. "What I did say was that I thought Aunt Christian would rather tell you the story herself. I thought it would spoil all the interest of the lecture if it was talked over beforehand. That was all."

"You certainly said—However, it doesn't matter; I dare say that was what you meant," said Lizzy. She saw that Marion was placed in an uncomfortable predicament, and had no desire to make it any worse for her. Lizzy was learning that charity which "rejoiceth not in iniquity."

"I don't see how you could think so, Marion," said Mrs. Campbell, rather indignantly.

"You certainly gave me that idea, Aunt Christian. However, I suppose I am wrong, as usual," said Marion, resignedly but mournfully. "It is always my fate to do the wrong thing."

"That is an unlucky fate, certainly," said Mrs. Campbell, dryly. "But now, Lizzy, what can I tell you about Rachel that you will like to hear?"

"Oh, everything," said Lizzy. "Tell me what sort of clothes she wears, please. Are they like ours?"

Mrs. Campbell replied, and the whole party were soon deeply engaged in asking and answering questions.

Marion alone sat silent and constrained, hardly hearing a word that was said, though Doctor Campbell, pitying her embarrassment, made several attempts to include her in the conversation. Marion's thoughts were busy with herself; as usual:

"How could I be so silly? What will Aunt Christian think of me? I might have known it would come out. Oh dear! How unfortunate I always am! Here is Lizzy Gates talking away at her ease and making aunt think she is so sensible and bright, and I sit here looking like a fool. Oh dear! Was there ever any one so unlucky as I am? Everything is sure to go against me. I did so want Aunt Christian to like and appreciate me, and now she never will."

"There! Now you have it right, if you can only remember it," said Lizzy, at last. "I must say I hate to have people in general ask me to show them, but you have learned very quickly. I don't know how long it took me, and I believe poor Marion finally gave the matter up for a bad business, didn't you, Marion?"

"Yes," answered Marion. "I have no taste for fancy-work—at least not for that kind. I can't give my mind to such little matters—I really cannot," said Marion, with an air as if she were apologizing for her own superiority. "I cannot keep my attention fixed upon them; the first I know, my thoughts are at the ends of the earth."

"That is rather unfortunate," said Doctor Campbell. "Is it only in such little things that you find that difficulty?"

"I don't find it in things that interest me," answered Marion; "but I must confess I do hate drudgery."

"And what do you call drudgery, my dear?"

Marion did not know exactly how to answer the question, but after a little consideration she said,—

"I call any work drudgery where you have to go on doing the same things over and over without any variety or interest."

"Then all work which is not interesting is drudgery?"

"Yes, to me it is. Some people seem to like it well enough. I call it drudgery to wash dishes and bake and sew and learn lessons that one does not care for."

"And, in short, to do any work which is not immediately entertaining or amusing," said Doctor Campbell, finishing the list as Marion paused.

"Then I am sure you would never learn music in the world, Marion," said Lizzy, "because more than half of that is real drudgery. You ought to see the pages of five-finger exercises Mr. Dundas gives me. But now, Dr. Campbell, what work do you call drudgery?"

"I don't call any work drudgery," said the doctor. "It is a bit of cant to which I have a special objection. So long as there is no one task which any one is called on to perform that may not be hallowed by a good intention, and done for the sake of One who has done all for us, there is no task which should be disgraced by the name of drudgery. What you say about your music applies to all the work in the world. More than half—yes, more than two thirds—of it is utterly uninteresting in itself. It must be made first a matter of duty and obedience, and then you may make it a labour of love in the way I hinted at."

"I should not think it would be so in your work, Doctor Campbell," said Lizzy.

"In ours quite as much as in any other, Lizzy. Seen from the outside, the life of a foreign missionary has an aspect of romance about it. Seen from within, it has as little of romance as any other calling whatever. To say nothing of the trials of sickness and danger and homesickness—the last not the least—a foreign missionary comes in contact with more sordid, disgusting details than any other worker, unless it may be a work-house doctor or a clergyman in a low city district. There come up constantly things which are unspeakably disgusting both in a moral and physical point of view, but which nobody knows but the missionary, simply because they are too bad to be told. Then come the misunderstandings with fellow-workers and with friends at home; and, in short, the missionary's life is like any other: in order to do hard work, you must work hard," concluded the doctor, smiling.

"Do missionaries ever quarrel?" asked Lizzy.

"Missionaries, my dear, are human beings. I do not think they quarrel more than other people—perhaps not quite so much. But you can see that in such a small, isolated community, depending on each other for society, and thrown very much together, the greatest prudence and caution are necessary. You know how, when a large family connexion live near each other, one single person who is imprudent or malicious in speech may set the whole by the ears."

Lizzy sighed.

"What called out that sigh?" asked Mrs. Campbell, smiling.

"I was thinking that I should never do for a missionary," said Lizzy.

"I am sure I should not, if one must weigh and measure every word one says," said Marion, rather indignantly. "I can't bear such cold, calculating people; I think they are detestable. Let people follow their impulses, I say."

"And suppose the impulse of somebody is to tell a scandalous story about you or utterly to misrepresent something you have said or done?" said Christian. "What then?"

Marion was saved the trouble of a reply by a sudden interruption. Just as Mrs. Campbell finished speaking, Therese Beaubien was seen coming across the field as if her feet had wings.

"What in the world ails Therese?" said Lizzy. "See how she is running!"

"We shall soon know, for she is coming here," said Mrs. Campbell, going to the door just as Therese jumped over the garden wall, and came running up the path to the house. At the same moment Alick McGregor came round the corner and nearly caught Therese in his arms.

"Why, Therese, what is the matter?" exclaimed all the party at once.

"Oh, Mr. McGregor, have you seen my mother? Do you know where she is?" exclaimed Therese.

"No, my dear; I have not seen her since last week some time."

"Oh, where can she be? What has happened?" said Therese, wringing her hands. "Oh, Mr. McGregor, do, do come to our house and see what has happened!"

Heiress of McGregor.

—found a window—

"In a moment," said Alick. "Sit down a moment, Therese; recover your breath and tell us just what is the matter; then we shall know better what to do. Your mother is not at home? She may have gone out somewhere to work."

"No, no!" said Therese. "She always leaves the key where I can find it. But it is not there now, and the house is fastened. I looked in through the window, and everything is all smoked and blackened up; the ceiling is scorched, and there is a great hole burned in the floor. Oh, do come and see what has happened!"

It was not very far across the fields to the little house, and the whole party was soon gathered round the door which was fast. Alick tried the back door with the same result, but presently found a window, by which he entered and unlocked the door.

"Stay where you are, girls," said he; "I don't know how much weight the floor will bear. It is burned clear through. Duncan, will you come in?"

A more thorough search revealed little more than what Therese had seen through the window. There had clearly been an attempt to set the house on fire which had not succeeded. The fire had been lighted in the middle of the floor, had burned through into the cellar, and from some unexplained cause had gone out. There was no other sign of violence.

"Mother is killed! Mother is murdered!" exclaimed Therese. She turned pale as ashes, and would have fallen but for Doctor Campbell's supporting arm.

"Keep up, my dear; don't faint if you can possibly help it," said he. "Sit down on the ground—flat down that is the best way. Here, take this."

He poured something out of a small pocket-flask and held it to her lips. The instinct of obedience was strong with Therese. She drank, and her colour came back.

"I want you to try and keep your wits together, because you can give us the help that nobody else can," said Doctor Campbell, seeing that she was recovering. "We want you to look through the house and see what is missing, to see particularly whether any of your mother's wearing apparel is gone. Come, now, be a brave girl."

"How unfeeling Uncle Duncan is!" thought Marion.

Therese did not think so. She recognized the kindness in the doctor's tone of command, and mustered all her energies to obey. In a moment she rose to her feet and went into her mother's room, while Alick whispered something to his sister, who nodded assent:

"I'm afraid so."

"Mother's hat and shawl and her waterproof cloak are gone," said Therese, reappearing, "and some of her clothes. So is her large basket, and I can't find my French Testament or my photograph that I gave her last Christmas."

Alick and Miss Baby again exchanged glances. Therese saw the look:

"Oh, Mr. Alick, I am sure you know something you don't tell me. Do, do please let me know all."

"You had better do so, Alick," said Miss Baby.

"The trouble is that I don't know anything certainly, though I have a very strong suspicion," said Alick. "Therese, the truth is your father has been seen twice during the last week. Sam Bryant met him face to face on Blue Hill last Saturday, and I saw him twice on the same day."

"You don't think he has murdered her?" said Therese, in a horrified whisper.

"No," answered Alick; "there are no signs of that. I think that she has gone away with him."

"I don't believe it," said Therese, with a flash of indignant feeling which brought the colour back to her face. "My mother would never desert me for him—I know she never would."

"Let us look about again," said Doctor Duncan. "Has anything else been altered since you were here?"

At that moment the cat made her appearance from a little shed not far from the house. Therese went and looked into the shed.

"The cat's basket was up-stairs in the house, and now it is down here," she said. "Somebody must have moved it."

She went into the house and began moving out the bed from the wall.

"What is that for?" asked Miss Baby.

"Mother kept her money in a cupboard behind the bed when she had any," answered Therese. "I gave her eight dollars last Saturday, and she had more, I know, for she had just sold all her baskets." She opened the door of the little cupboard as she spoke. It was quite empty save for a bit of paper which lay on the shelf. Therese caught it up eagerly, read it, and then gave it to Alick.

"It is true," said she, in a hoarse whisper. "My mother has deserted me. Oh, mother, mother, mother!"

The note was very short. It merely said, "I am going to leave you, my child. I can do you no good, and I am only a shame and trouble to you and all my family. Don't distress yourself about me; I am not worth it. Stay with Mrs. Tremaine as long as you can, and be kind and dutiful to my mother. I shall never come back, but you may hear from me some time or other. I shall be taken care of." That was all.

"Poor thing! Poor misguided, perverse creature!" said Miss Baby.

"Don't say a word now," said Doctor Duncan, hastily, "but let us get this unhappy child home, and just as quickly as can be. Marion, run on before, and have a bed got ready, and plenty of hot water. We shall have to carry her, Alick."

"Oh, Uncle Duncan, what ails her?" cried Marion. "How dreadfully she looks!"

"Don't stop to talk, but run," was the doctor's only answer. "I am afraid she will have a fit. Take her up, Alick. There is no use in talking to her; she does not hear a word. Poor child! I hope her reason will not be overset."

Therese was carried to the farm and laid in bed.

Lizzy went down to the village and sent up her father and Mrs. Tremaine, but Therese lay like a breathing statue. Her eyes were wide open, but she seemed to see nothing and hear nothing.

"Do you think she will die, Uncle Duncan?" asked Marion.

"There is no saying; she may do worse than die," answered the doctor. "Pray for her, my child, for she needs all our prayers. I have great fears that she will never know anything again."

CHAPTER VII.

THE MISSION MEETING.

SATURDAY came, and with it the missionary meeting. Therese had not yet recovered her senses, but there were signs of improvement. Her pulse was better, and she swallowed what was put in her mouth.

"Oh, I do hope she will live," said Marion as she slipped into the room and stood looking at her playmate. "How pale she has grown!"

"That is a good sign," said the doctor.

"Don't you think she will live, Uncle Duncan?"

"I cannot tell, Marion; I hope she may, unless her mind should prove to be hopelessly gone. That has been my fear from the first. In that case we can hardly wish for her life, for we have reason to believe that she is prepared for death."

"I should not have thought that Therese had so much feeling," observed Marion, "she always seemed so lively and cheerful. Some girls in her situation would never have held their heads up at all, but Therese was always ready to help in any fun that was going on. If I had been in her place, my spirits would have been so depressed I should not have been able to enjoy anything."

Doctor Campbell smiled a queer little smile which at once set Marion to thinking whether she had said anything which her uncle could think silly.

"If you were burdened with any great trouble, you would find, my dear, that you could not afford to be depressed. Really afflicted people are seldom what is called low spirited. They cannot afford it. Depression of spirits properly so called usually comes from derangement of the liver."

"Just like a doctor," thought Marion. "Don't you mean to go down to the meeting, Uncle Duncan?" she asked, aloud. "Mrs. Parmalee expects you at least to tea, you know."

"Mrs. Parmalee must excuse me," answered the doctor; "I think this afternoon will be the turning-point with my patient, and I do not like to leave her."

"Is Uncle Duncan always so much interested in his patients?" asked Marion of her aunt as they walked down toward the village.

"Why, hardly," answered Mrs. Campbell, smiling. "If, for instance, I had a severe cold in my head, I should hardly expect the doctor to stay at home for me. He is naturally much interested for Therese, both because it is a remarkable case and because she is an unusually bright and interesting girl placed in very unhappy circumstances. I suppose Duncan would do his duty by a patient in any case, but you can hardly expect him to feel exactly the same amount of personal interest for them all."

Marion said no more, but walked on, considering whether she would not have the heiress of McGregor deserted by all her friends and left to the care of strangers in a brain fever, or whether a lingering consumption would not be more interesting.

When they arrived at the parsonage, they found the roomy parlours filled to overflowing. All the district school girls were present. Even Matty McRae had not been able to keep to her resolution of staying away, though she had done all the mischief in her power by repeating the story of Marion's watch to every one she could get to listen to her. Almost all the girls belonging to the missionary society had brought their work, and there was a great deal of talk going on, which ceased on the entrance of Mrs. Campbell and Marion.

Mrs. Campbell went round among the girls, speaking to those she knew and admiring the work, some of which was indeed remarkably pretty.

"How is Therese to-day?" asked Kitty as soon as she could get hold of Marion.

"Uncle Duncan thinks she is better, but I can't see any change in her," answered Marion, rather pettishly. She had been very sorry for Therese at first, but latterly she had begun to feel that the sick girl was attracting rather more than her share of interest. "She can swallow and she has grown pale and shuts her eyes, and Uncle Duncan says they are all good signs. I don't believe but that she might be roused if Uncle Duncan would let anybody try, but he won't."

"Of course he knows best," said Kitty. "Oh, I do hope she will get well."

"I'm sure I hope she will, for it isn't very convenient having her sick at our house so long," returned Marion. And then, feeling that this was not a very amiable speech, she added, hastily, "Of course I don't mind it myself, but it makes so much more work for Aunt Baby."

"Of course mamma will take her home as soon as Dr. Campbell thinks she can be moved safely," said Kitty. She turned away as she spoke, and Marion, as usual, began to wish her words unsaid.

If she had considered her words as much before she spoke as she did afterward, she would have saved herself and other people a great deal of trouble.

"And now what do you wish most to hear about?" asked Mrs. Campbell as soon as she had found a seat between the folding-doors where she could see everybody. There was a short silence, and then one of the little girls said, "Everything, please."

"But I can't tell everything at once, you know," said Mrs. Campbell, smiling. "Where shall I begin?"

"With little Rachel, please, Mrs. Campbell," said Lizzy Gates, who was apt to be the spokesman wherever she was, not from any particular forwardness, but because, as she expressed it, she "could never see anything waiting to be done without trying to do it." "Please to tell the girls the story you told me the other day up at your house about how Dr. Campbell found Rachel in the first place."

"Very well; I suppose I may as well begin there as anywhere. If I do not tell you what you wish to know, you must ask questions."

I shall not attempt to give the substance of Mrs. Campbell's little lecture, interesting as it was. When she came to a conclusion, there was a general cry of—

"Oh, Mrs. Campbell, don't stop. Go on, please."

"My dear girls, my lungs are not made of cast iron," said Mrs. Campbell, smiling, "and I think you have had a pretty long 'screed,' as my father would say. Do you know that I have been talking to you for more than two hours?"

"It doesn't seem possible," said Laura Bryant, who had heretofore taken very little interest in the missionary society. "It does not seem any time at all."

"That is a very pretty compliment, my dear."

"It wasn't a compliment, it was true," answered Laura, bluntly.

"Compliments may be true as well as false, Laura. If I should say you were a very attentive listener, that would be a compliment, but it would also be true."

Laura hardly knew whether to be pleased or not. She was not accustomed to politeness, or even civility, at home. All the Bryants thought they showed their sincerity by being blunt and rude and saying the most disagreeable things possible, especially to each other. Nevertheless, she felt, as everybody must, the charm of sincere good breeding.

"What I like is that you make everything so real," said she. "When I read of such things in books, they never do seem real. I cannot make myself believe that these Turks and Syrians and Arabs are people having the same feelings as we have."

"I know," observed Lizzy. "I have had the same feelings about places I have never seen. I am not quite sure that I really believe in China, after all."

"You are like the old lady who said it had never been revealed to her that there was such a place as Jerusalem," said Mrs. Campbell. "I believe many people have the same feeling. It is one of the difficulties which the mission boards have to contend with. There are numbers who would be ready to give if they could only see the need with their own eyes, but they cannot do that, and it has never been 'revealed' to them that there are any such places or people or things as the missionary papers tell them of. That power of realization is one of the many uses of imagination."

"I never thought of that," said Emily Sibley, a grave, pale, prim-looking girl, one of the oldest in the school. "I always supposed imagination was something to be put down—a kind of disease of the mind."

"Not at all, my dear. Imagination is as much a faculty of the mind as reason. Like that, it should be regulated and controlled and sanctified, but no more 'put down' than reason should be 'put down.'"

"My father don't believe in missions, any way," said Matty McRae, who had listened in spite of herself. "He says the churches go running about after foreign missions and such stuff, and neglect the poor at their own door, and that every dollar given to the heathen takes five dollars to send it."

"If your father will take pains to inquire for himself, Matty, he will find both these statements untrue," answered Mrs. Campbell. "He will find that the churches which do and give the most for foreign missions are those which are most active and generous in all kinds of charitable work at home, and that the statement about the money is quite as incorrect as the other."

"Why don't some one disprove them, then?" asked Lizzy.

"They have been disproved over and over again, but that does not prevent their being repeated on every occasion."

There was a little whispering in one corner, and somebody said, as if speaking a little louder than she meant,—

"Yes, I will ask her too; I want to know how it was."

"Ask her what?" said Mrs. Campbell.

Little Mary McIntyre stood forward, flushed and rather scared, but evidently determined to know the truth.

"Well, Mrs. Campbell, I don't know but you'll think me impudent, but I don't mean to be, so I hope you'll excuse me."

"I will when I know what there is to excuse."

"Well, somebody has been telling everybody that you gave Marion a present of a watch that cost more than a hundred dollars, and folks say—some folks do—that they won't give money to missionaries to buy gold watches with. And I thought I would just ask you how it really was."

"Quite right, Mary. I will answer your question to the best of my ability. In the first place, the watch did not cost a hundred dollars, but only sixty. Secondly, it was given to Marion, not by me, but by Mr. Van Alstine, her stepfather, who is a quite wealthy man. Thirdly, supposing I had given my niece a gold watch, it would by no means follow that the cause of missions was any poorer. Mr. McRae is agent for a sewing-machine factory; but if he should give Matty a watch, nobody would have a right to suppose that he paid for it with his employers' money. That would be a very unkind and uncharitable conclusion."

Mrs. Campbell had known nothing about Matty's connection with the story of the gold watch. She was therefore very much surprised when all the girls looked at her significantly and Matty coloured and looked just ready to cry. She saw that there was something amiss, and with her usual ready tact she hastened to change the conversation.

"Suppose any one wished to be a missionary; what would be the best way of going to work to get ready, Mrs. Campbell?" asked Emily Sibley.

"I hardly know how to answer you except by saying that the better you are prepared for usefulness at home, the more useful you are likely to be abroad. Some experience in teaching is very desirable, and a district school or a class in Sunday school is a very good training. Then one should be well acquainted with the best methods of doing all sorts of household work; and, in short, usefulness in the home-field is the best preparation for usefulness in the other."

"Now, really, my dear girls, you must not quite eat Mrs. Campbell up at one meal," said lively little Mrs. Parmalee, coming into the room presently. "Consider that you have kept her on the stretch for three mortal hours. Now put away your work and come and have some tea. You have learned as much as you can remember, I am sure."

"We have not been learning at all," said Mary McIntyre, indignantly. "It has been just as interesting as it could be."

"Mary doesn't go to the Crocker school, that's certain," said Lizzy, joining in the universal laugh. "Never mind, Molly; some time or other you will find out that learning can be interesting. Oh, there! Don't cry," as the sensitive little girl's cheeks grew scarlet and her eyes overflowed. "There was not a bit of harm in what you said, and the girls were not laughing at you at all. Were we, girls?"

"No, of course not," said Kitty. "I remember when I used to have the same feeling when mamma was sick so long in Paris, and I had Miss Milliken for a governess. She meant to be good, and she was, but oh, so dry. I was reading the 'Tales of a Grandfather' for my English lesson, and she made it as dry as the Fourth Reader."

"How fond Kitty is of talking about the time when she was in Paris!" said Laura to Marion in a whisper. "She thinks she is ever so much better than the rest of us because she has been abroad," continued Laura. "Mother says she shouldn't think the Tremaines would want to say much about that, because Mr. Tremaine gambled away all his wife's property there. I do hate such stuck-up, aristocratic folks, don't you?"

The conversation was interrupted by a call to tea. It was the custom in Holford on all such occasions for the ladies of the congregation to send in refreshments. The table was bountifully supplied with all sorts of good things, to which the girls were fully prepared to do justice. They all stood round the room, while Lizzy Gates, Kitty, and two or three others waited upon them, and there was a great deal of eating, laughing, and talking. Marion was one of the waiters, and after the rest had finished sat down with them to "eat her supper in peace," as Lizzy said.

"Oh, Mrs. Campbell, please stay with us," said Kitty; "I think we have earned that privilege by our arduous labour. Don't you, girls?"

"Yes, indeed," was the general answer.

And Mrs. Campbell, nothing loth, sat down again. She was fond of the society of young people, and naturally gratified by the interest shown in what was most interesting to her. She had been at a good deal of pains, and had spent valuable time which she could ill spare in writing letters to the little missionary society in Holford; and taking Marion as an index of the state of feeling among its members, she had been vexed and disappointed by the apparent indifference.

"Girls, we ought not to ask her another single question," said Kitty at last; "it is a shame to make her talk so much, when she is so tired. Marion, I shouldn't think you would ever know when to stop."

Marion coloured, conscious that she had hardly even made a beginning.

"What a pity poor Therese could not been here!" said Lizzy. "She would have had more questions to ask than anybody. I think Therese would make a good missionary."

"Is Therese a religious girl?" asked Mrs. Campbell.

"Oh yes, indeed, Mrs. Campbell," answered Kitty, eagerly. "I do think she is a real Christian, and mamma says so too. She is so faithful about everything. I do think she makes a conscience of the least thing she undertakes."

"That is a good trait, certainly," said Mrs. Campbell.

"And then she is so much in earnest about everything she does," added Lizzy. "Oh, she is a splendid girl; I do hope she will get well."

"Mamma says Therese has great talents," observed Kitty; "she says she never knew a girl on whom a thoroughly good education could be better bestowed, and that it is a pity she should not have the chances some girls are throwing away."

"Why doesn't your mother send her to school, then?" asked Marion.

"She cannot afford it," answered Kitty, simply. "You know we are not rich at all, and mother could not afford to keep Therese unless she saved her the expense of another girl. If it were only Therese, we might do it, but we have to help other people who have more claims upon us. I wish it was different, I am sure, for I love Therese dearly."

"Therese thinks she has a splendid chance," said Lizzy; "she told Marion and me so that very day she was taken sick. Don't you remember, Marion? She said she was just as happy as she could be, and that there were very few girls who had as good a chance as hers."

"I am glad she thinks so, I am sure," said Kitty; "we do help her all we can."

"I'm sure I wish I had somebody to help me," said little Mary McIntyre, who was one of the party and had hitherto listened in silence to the conversation. "You wouldn't laugh at what I said about learning, girls, if you went to school to Miss Smith. She does make everything so stupid, and she says I ask frivolous and foolish questions because I want to know about the people who live in the countries in the geography," continued Mary, forgetting her shyness in the recital of her wrongs; "and for my part, I think it is quite as important to know who lives along the rivers is to know just how long and how wide they are."

"You must consider, my dear, that Miss Smith has a good deal to do," said Mrs. Campbell, sympathizing with the little girl; "but, Mary, if Miss Smith does not answer your questions, you should try to find out in other ways. You must use the opportunities you have, and you will find that others will grow out of them. But, my dear girls, doesn't it strike you that we have been sitting an unconscionable time at the table, and that our friends will wonder what has become of us? I think we had better return to the drawing-room."

"Hasn't it been a delightful time?" said Kitty to Marion as they were putting on their hats to go home. "I don't think I ever spent a pleasanter afternoon in my life. Your aunt is so interesting."

Marion assented rather languidly. She had not enjoyed the afternoon, and was glad when it was over. Marion had, somehow or other expected to have her own consequence greatly enhanced by her aunt's coming. Mrs. Campbell was her property, and should have reflected credit upon her. But nobody had seemed to think of Marion at all. She was only a girl among the rest of the girls, and no one treated her with any more consideration than if she had been little Mary McIntyre.

"Marion," suddenly exclaimed her aunt as they were slowly and rather silently walking homeward in the twilight—the "gloaming" Hector McGregor would have called it—"how came you to give the girls the idea that I did not want anything said or any questions asked about the subject of our mission before the lecture?"

"I don't know, I am sure," answered Marion; "I got the idea from you somehow, and I thought myself the lecture would be more interesting if it was all new to them."

"You gave them a false impression," said Mrs. Campbell, "and me also. I thought the girls cared nothing about the matter, and I was very much hurt that it should be so after all the pains I had taken. You ought to be very careful in such matters."

"I am sure I did not mean any harm," said Marion, with a sigh.

"And you did not do any, as it turned out, but you might have done a great deal," said Mrs. Campbell. "You see how the story has gone about your watch. Do you know who began that?"

"It was Matty McRae herself," said Marion, laughing and forgetting her own annoyance for the moment in the remembrance of Matty's discomfiture. "Didn't you see how all the girls looked at her?"

"I thought I noticed something peculiar," said Mrs. Campbell. "Poor child! I did not mean to mortify her so. I mentioned her father because he was the only agent I could think of at the moment."

"I should think you would be glad," said Marion. "I am sure she deserved it for telling the stories she told."

"I dare say she did, but still I am sorry. It seldom does people good to hurt their feelings."

"I am sure I wish people would remember that where I am concerned," said Marion, with another sigh.

"Why, who hurts your feelings, Marion? I thought everybody was very considerate and kind to you," said Mrs. Campbell.

"If it was you, Aunt Christian, you wouldn't think so," said Marion, with another sigh.

"Perhaps you are too easily hurt."

"I dare say I am. I know I am very sensitive, and am hurt by a great many things which other people don't mind at all."

"If that is the case, there must be something wrong," said Mrs. Campbell. "A sore spot is usually a diseased spot and needs to be cured."

"I don't understand you, Aunt Christian."

"Why, if your finger is sore, you know that something is the matter with it," said Christian. "Anybody's hand may be hurt by a hot iron or by being pinched in a door; but if you shrink from having your hand touched, or even looked at, you must know that it needs the doctor."

"And what do you think is the best cure for over-sensitiveness, aunt, supposing that I am over-sensitive?"

"I think usually the best cure lies in removing the cause of the disease."

"What is the cause?"

"It is different, of course, in different cases. As often as any way, perhaps oftener, it arises from too much thinking about ourselves."

"I don't think I am so very self-conceited," said Marion, in an offended tone.

"I did not use the word 'self-conceited,' I believe, my dear. There are different ways of thinking about ourselves, and I was going to say that they are almost all equally bad. That would be going too far, but I do think the true remedy for over-sensitiveness is self-forgetfulness."

"I don't see how one would go to work to forget one's self."

"In various ways. Instead of thinking what others ought to do for you, busy yourself in thinking what you ought to do for them. Instead of dwelling on your own feelings, put them aside and try to enter into the pursuits of other people. In short, to sum up all in a little, 'Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.' 'For even Christ pleased not himself.' See, here is Uncle Duncan coming to meet us, and he looks as if he had good news. I hope poor Therese is better. Well, Duncan?"

"Therese has opened her eyes and spoken," said Doctor Campbell. "She is quite rational; and if we can only tide her over the dangerous time, she will do well."

"What do you mean by the 'dangerous time,' Uncle Duncan?" asked Marion.

"The time when she shall begin to remember," answered Doctor Campbell. "Barbara is sitting with her; and, Marion, my dear, you must try to do up the work and attend to everything about the house, so as to leave your aunt at liberty to sit with Therese."

"Yes, that is always the way. The drudgery always comes to my share," thought Marion, indignantly. "Just as if I could not sit with Therese and manage her just as well as Aunt Barbara!"

CHAPTER VIII.

"LEFT, BUT NOT ALONE."

"I WILL help you with the work, Marion," said Mrs. Campbell, coming down after having put her hat away and changed her dress.

"Thank you, Aunt Christian; I can do it myself," answered Marion, proudly. "Since it is all I am considered fit for, I may as well give myself to it."

Mrs. Campbell took no notice of this remark; but going into the milk-room, she began putting away the milk which Alick and the hired man were bringing in.

"In Scotland, now, it would be you and I who would be milking," said she to Marion as she came out with a pile of pans in her hands. "Milking there is work for lassies, and not for men. Baby and I used always to milk in my mother's time; don't you remember, Alick?"

"Marion doesn't like to milk," said Alick. "Either she thinks it beneath her dignity, or else she is afraid of the cows, I don't know which."

Alick spoke playfully, but his words hurt still more Marion's already wounded vanity—her feelings, she would have said. She did not say a word, but went about her work in sulky silence, till Miss Baby came out of the sickroom with some dishes in her hands.

"Well, Marie dear, how are you getting on?" said she, pleasantly.

"Well enough," answered Marion, shortly, not to say rudely.

"You heard that Therese was better? Have you had a pleasant afternoon?"

"I don't know—yes, I suppose so. Everybody seemed to think it was very nice, so I suppose it was," said Marion.

"My dear child, what is the matter?" asked Christian, seeing that Marion was just ready to cry.

"Nothing, Aunt Christian," answered Marion, "only I am so tired I don't know what I am about." Marion's voice failed.

"There! Never mind the work," said Aunt Baby. "Go and sit down with Therese. She is asleep now, and won't notice if you go in softly. The minute she wakes or shows signs of waking, come and call me."

"I don't know about that arrangement, Barbara," said the doctor, doubtfully. "Marion, be sure you call me the moment she stirs. Above all, don't let her say a word; watch her every minute, and the moment she shows signs of waking, call me."

"Uncle Duncan thinks I am a fool, as every one else does," said Marion to herself as she took her seat by the bedside. "Just as if I had never done anything for sick people!"

To do Marion justice, she was always ready to help in cases of sickness and was in general a very good nurse, but she did not quite appreciate the importance of the present occasion, and she was thinking more of herself than her patient. Therese slept very quietly for nearly an hour. Then she opened her eyes and fixed them on Marion with a wondering and puzzled expression. Marion did not observe her, being at that moment deeply engaged with the heiress of McGregor.

Presently Therese spoke.

"Why, Marion, is that you!" said she quite calmly. "How did you come here?"

Now was the time for Marion to have shown that calmness and presence of mind which the heiress of McGregor had just been exercising, under circumstances of the utmost danger. But somehow the calmness and presence of mind were not at hand just then, and she could not think of anything to say, except, in a scared tone,—

"Hush, Therese! you must not speak a word; go to sleep again."

"Why, what is the matter?" said Therese, in a wondering tone and looking about her. "This is not my room. Where am I?" Then, as memory began to come back, "Oh, what has happened? I am sure there is something dreadful; what is it?"

"There is nothing dreadful at all," answered Marion, in a tone of authority, "and nothing has happened. You must not say a word."

"But I am sure something is the matter," said Therese, raising her hand to her head. "It was something about mother. They said she had gone away; or was it that she was burned up in the house? Marion, why don't you answer me?"

"You will know all about it when you are better," said Marion, a good deal alarmed, but maintaining her ground; "you must not ask any questions now. Lie down and try to go to sleep again; your mother is here all right."

"Then call her, do call her, and let me see her!" cried Therese. "Mother, mother, why don't you come?"

Thoroughly frightened, Marion did at last what she ought to have done at first; she called her uncle.

Doctor Duncan entered the room and went to the bedside.

"Hush, my dear child!" said he, in calm tones. "Be quiet, and then I will explain the matter to you. Your mother is not here, so there is no use in calling her."

"Marion said she was here," said Therese.

"Marion was wrong; she is not here, but I hope she is quite safe and well. We have no reason to think anything else. You have been, and are, very sick, but I hope you will soon be better, if you do as you are bid. When you are so, you shall hear all that there is to tell. Marion, go and tell your Aunt Barbara to bring the broth I asked her to have ready, but don't come back yourself."

Marion did her errand, and then went up to her room and burst into a flood of tears, though to save her life she could not have said exactly what she was crying about. Mortification, wounded vanity, perhaps a little fatigue, and—tell it not of a heroine!—a little too much plum-cake and cream tart, all contributed to her tears.

Presently there was a knock at the door, and Aunt Christian entered. "Duncan thought you would like to know that Therese has fallen quietly to sleep again," said she.

"I'm sure I am very glad," answered Marion, rather ashamed to accept the consideration after the hard thoughts she had just been entertaining of her uncle. Then, recurring to herself, as usual, "I suppose Uncle Duncan thinks it is all my fault?"

"He thinks you should have called him, as he told you," answered Christian. "Why didn't you?"

"I thought I could just as well manage her myself, and so I could if she had not been so unreasonable."

"We don't expect people in her circumstances to be anything but unreasonable," answered her aunt. She was silent a moment, and then said, "Marion, suppose we try to arrive at the bottom of this matter."

"I don't know what bottom there is to arrive at," said Marion, rather unwillingly. "It turned out just as it always does. I tried to be useful, and I am blamed and despised for it. That is all. I ought to be accustomed to such treatment by this time, but I am not, and I never shall be."

"One thing at a time, Marie. I don't know that any one has despised you. You were blamed, and I think justly."

"Yes, there it is. I am always in fault, whatever happens. I did the best I knew how, and that was all I could do."

"There was the trouble, Marion. You should not have tried to do anything except just what you were told. Duncan told you expressly to watch her and call him the moment Therese showed signs of waking. Could you not have done that?"

"I thought I could manage her myself."

"But why should you wish to 'manage her' yourself? It was not your place to 'manage.' Marion dear, I do think you would feel better if you would see and own where you were in the wrong."

"Oh, of course I am in the wrong. You need not tell me that. I think I must be an absolute fool. I might be sure something would go wrong with Therese if I had anything to do with her," sobbed Marion, giving way to a fresh burst of tears. "I wish I was out of the way, I am sure."

"I would not say that if I were you," said her aunt, gravely. "If you should be wrong about that, if you should make a mistake there, it might not be so easily set right, perhaps. Moreover, Marion, I am afraid you are not speaking the truth even to yourself. It is not that you think yourself a fool, but that you think you are very superior to the people around you, and that they do not appreciate your superiority. Is not that the trouble?"

"You don't in the least understand me," said Marion, feeling more and more aggrieved.

"But now tell me, Marie, why didn't you call your uncle, as he told you?"

"I didn't notice that Therese was awake till she spoke," confessed Marion, at last.

"But you should have known, my dear. You were told to watch her every minute."

"Well, I meant to, but I got thinking of something else, and then I thought I could manage well enough, and I was vexed at Uncle Duncan for thinking I couldn't do as well for Therese as Aunt Baby," said Marion, coming to the truth at last.

"Then, you see, it was just as I told you. You were thinking too much about yourself, and feeling angry that any one, even one so much older as Aunt Baby, should be considered your superior. My dear child, as long as you allow yourself in such a spirit as that, you will never have any peace either within or without."

"Well, I can't bear to be despised."

"Is it despising a girl of fifteen to think that she is not equal in judgment and experience to a woman of forty? It would be very unreasonable to expect any such thing."

"I shall never have any comfort or be any comfort to anybody in the world," said Marion, crying again. "If my father had lived, it would have been different, but nobody feels for me or cares for me. My mother has deserted me for a stranger, and there is nobody to love or sympathize with me."

"Marion, you are 'sinning your mercies,' as my father says," said her aunt. "There is not a girl in the United States who has a better home or kinder friends than you have."

"I thought you would feel for me when you came," continued Marion, between her sobs, "but you and Uncle Duncan are just like all the rest. You look down on me and despise me."

"You certainly are not going on in a way to make me respect you at present," replied Mrs. Campbell. "I must confess I am disappointed in you."

Mrs. Campbell turned to leave the room.

"Please don't go, Aunt Christian. Oh, I am so miserable!"

"I don't see any occasion for any misery, Marion. What is all the trouble about? Think it over now, and tell me without any exaggeration what the matter is. You did wrong about Therese, and might have occasioned great harm, but we hope none has been done. That matter is easily disposed of."

"I don't see how."

"Simply, my dear, by owning that you were in the wrong, and then thinking no more about it. What next?"

Marion did not know, only "she was very unhappy, and all she did was wrong, and—"

"Now, Marie, what do you mean by that?" interrupted her aunt. "You don't mean to say that you believe all you do to be wrong because you won't acknowledge that you were to blame even in one particular? However, I see there is no use in talking. I advise you to go to bed and get rested, and to-morrow perhaps you will see matters differently. Good-night. I must go to bed myself, so that I can relieve Sister Baby at two o'clock."

"I suppose there is no use in my offering to do anything?" said Marion.

"Why, you are hardly in a state to be of much use just now, my dear, and the case is rather too serious to be left to a young nurse like you—no offence to your skill. I think the best thing you can do is to say your prayers and go to bed and to sleep as soon as possible, that you may be ready to help in the morning."

Marion went to bed, but not to sleep.

Aunt Christian's plain dealing had torn a little hole in the veil of self-conceit which usually enveloped her, and as she reviewed her conduct for the last few hours she could not help seeing that she had been wrong. Still, her repentance was not of a healthful kind. It was not the fact that she had sinned in indulging uncharitable and undutiful thoughts, in disobedience and self-conceit, which distressed her, but that she had fallen in the estimation of her uncle and aunt.

"Aunt Christian said she was disappointed in me, so she must have expected a good deal. How silly I have been! If I had only called Uncle Duncan the first minute! But then it was not only that. I was cross, I know, about doing the work. And I needn't have cried and made such a fuss afterward. I don't care. I can't help it now, but I mean to let them see to-morrow that I can do something and be of some use."

And with this resolution Marion at last fell asleep.

Marion had fully meant to be up very early and do all the work before her aunt was awake, but her wakeful night made her sleepy; and when she came down, she found breakfast all ready.

"Why, Aunt Barbara, why didn't you call me?" she exclaimed.

"You were so tired last night I thought I would let you sleep," answered Aunt Baby. "There was very little to do."

Marion was vexed; but remembering her resolution, she swallowed her vexation and asked, "How is Therese?"

"Very much better, we hope. She has no fever and is quite rational and composed. Uncle Duncan thinks there is no reason why she should not get well if she has no new shock. Mrs. Tremaine has sent word that she is coming up to stay with Therese to-day, and Fanchette Beaubien is with her already."

"Did Therese know her?"

"Oh yes, and was glad to see her. She was a little agitated at first, but Fanchette was so calm and sensible that she soon grew quiet again. Call grandfather, my dear, and let us have our breakfast."

Therese improved steadily after she once took the turn, and in the course of the week she was able to sit up, and even to come out into the common sitting-room. She was very docile and thankful, but sad and absent-minded, and it was evidently hard for her to interest herself in anything.

She was established one day in an arm-chair in the sitting-room with some light, pretty work in her lap and a pile of stereoscopic pictures on the table at her side. Marion was at school and all the family were busy in their several ways. Therese was not sorry to be left alone. They were all so kind to her that she felt as if she were ungrateful not to be interested, and it was very hard work to care for anything just now. She leaned back in her chair with closed eyes, and presently tears came starting out from under the long black lashes.

"Tired, lassie?" said old Hector, sitting down beside her and laying his broad hand on hers.

"Not—not so very," answered Therese.

"You are getting better very fast."

"Yes, I suppose so," Therese answered, but somewhat languidly, as if she did not feel much interest in the question.

"Are you not glad to get well?" asked the old man.

Therese answered, after a little pause of consideration, as it seemed, "I am willing to get well."

"Is that as far as you can get, poor lassie? That is hardly right for a young thing like you."

"I'm afraid it is," answered Therese, with rather a wintry smile. "I am not ungrateful, indeed, Mr. McGregor; I feel how kind every one has been to me; but I feel so left, so alone, as if I had no more place and nothing to do. Everybody is very good, but nobody seems to need me."

"I think I understand," said Hector McGregor. "You have always made your poor mother your chief object, and now she is gone, you feel as if you had nothing more to do."

"That is just it," said Therese, roused and interested and greatly comforted by the old man's quick comprehension of her trial. "Mother has always been in my thoughts. When I have earned money, it has been for her. When anything nice was given me or anything pleasant happened, half the pleasure was in telling her about it or saving it to share with her. It was just the same with what I learned, and I was always thinking of the time when we could have a little home together, and now it is all taken away."

"And is that the worst of it?" asked Hector, gently. "Don't say any more unless you like, my child, but I am an old man, and perhaps it may lighten your poor heart to talk to me. Isn't there something harder still?"

"Yes, indeed," said Therese. "It does seem so hard that, after all, mother should have gone and left me; for, Mr. McGregor, I have been a dutiful child as far as I knew how. I loved mother beyond all things, and now she has gone and left me for that man who never did her anything but harm. I can't help feeling hard and bitter toward her, not if I try ever so much.

"There is another thing that I suppose ought not to trouble me, but it does," continued Therese, after a little pause, "and that is the disgrace. I never minded it—I never thought much about it before. But now it seems as if I should never dare to look anybody in the face again. I feel as though I should like to go clear away from every one who has ever known me or heard of my father and mother. You know Miss Perkins was here yesterday; and when she and Miss Baby were out in the garden, I heard her say to Miss Baby, 'Of course Mrs. Tremaine will not want her again, after she has been mixed up in such a disgraceful affair. I wonder you should keep her. I think the poorhouse is good enough for her.'"

"Miss Perkins is not worth minding," said Hector. "If you are going to let your peace be blighted by the breath of such as she, my lass, you will never have any, for you will find that kind of people everywhere. Now, have we got to the bottom of the trouble?"

"I believe so."

"Well, my lamb, I'll not deny that they are great and sore troubles to fall on a young thing like you, but I think there is 'balm in Gilead' for them all. As to your being disgraced, we may as well call the thing by its right name. You must just make up your mind not to be cast down by that. It is a cross, and it is to be borne, as other crosses are borne, by the help of God's grace; and being thus borne, you may make it into a blessing. Really good people will not think less of you for your misfortunes, but there are those who rejoice in iniquity of all sorts, and such will be ready to cast up your parents' sins against you, specially if you go wrong.

"But if you resolutely and steadily do your duty, the matter will soon be overlooked and forgotten, or only remembered to your credit. Above all, don't let it embitter you. That was the great mistake your poor mother made, to my thinking."

"I know," said Therese; "she would not go to church, or even to the village to see her mother, because she said everybody looked down on her, and said, 'There goes Tone Beaubien's wife.' And now I suppose they will say, 'There goes Tone Beaubien's daughter.'"

"Never mind if they do. There used to be an old college in Aberdeen—Marischal * College it was called—with these words carved over the door:

"'They have said—

What said they?

Let them say!'

"That was the motto of the auld earls Marischal lang syne, and it is a good one for you now. 'Let them say!' Resolve that you will make a character for yourself, and that will be the best way to make people forget your poor father and mother's faults."

* Pronounced Marshall.

"If I thought I could do that!" said Therese, brightening.

"I am quite sure you can. As to your mother's leaving you for your father, I suppose the poor thing reasoned in this way: 'Therese doesn't need me. She has her grandfather and grandmother, and plenty of friends besides, to care for her, while my poor husband has nobody. I am only a trouble and disgrace to her, but I can be a help and comfort to him.' Mind, I don't say she was right, but I presume she thought she was."

"I see," said Therese; "but she might have known that I did not think her a trouble."

"My lass, to tell you the truth, I think your mother's mind was warped by her afflictions. She was not insane, but she was unsettled in her mind; she lived by herself and brood over her misfortunes till she had no power to see things as they are."

"That is true," said Therese, sighing; "but, after all, Mr. McGregor, it does not seem to alter the fact. She has always been my object, and now she is gone, and I have no other."

"And you a Christian?" said the old man, simply.

Therese started. "I don't understand," said she.

"You are a Christian, Therese, are you not—not only a Christian in name—everybody in this country is that—but you love your Saviour and desire to serve him?"

"Yes, I do," said Therese, in a low tone, but without any indecision. "I wish I loved him a great deal more than I do, though."

"Well, my lammie, does not that give you an object in life? And ought you to feel wholly alone when you have such precious promises:

"'When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee.'

"'If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.'

"'Who hath the Father and the Son

May be left, but not alone.'

"And since he permits you to work for him, what greater object do you want than that of promoting God's glory and honour, and the spread of his kingdom among men?"

"It seems too good to be true—too great and glorious for one like me," said Therese, in a low voice; "it seems like presumption."

"Never think that, Therese, never think that all the promises, yea, all the power and goodness and riches and love of your Heavenly Father, are not as much for you as for anybody else in the world. Live for him, and give yourself to him, and he will give himself to you. You may, I dare to say you will, have many and sore battles to fight with loneliness and discouragement and temptations, for you are not one of those over whom the troubles of this world pass the easiest. But always remember that He is on your side, and that you are fighting for him. Pray for and try to cultivate a sense of his love and his constant presence—believe me, it is a thing to be cultivated; make a daily renewal of your consecration to him, and make every sorrow and every temptation, yea, and every sin and failing, drive you nearer to and not away from him. Now, I have tired you out with this long screed of talk, and the doctor will be scolding in his conceited fashion.

"He is a real Campbell, yon lad—not that I have anything against the Campbells; they were good friends to our folk langsyne."

"You have not tired me one bit," said Therese; "you have done me a great deal of good. Thank you ever so much."

"You look better this evening," said Doctor Campbell, when he came in to see Therese.

"I am better," answered Therese.

CHAPTER IX.

"FRESH FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW."

FROM this time a great change was observed in Therese; her health improved rapidly; she was able to go about the house, and she soon began to help here and there in household matters, and to wait not only on herself but on other people.

Mrs. Tremaine had been suddenly called to New York on important business, and she had closed her house, leaving Kitty with Mrs. Parmalee, as she did not wish to take her out of school. Grandfather Beaubien or old Madame Duval would gladly have taken Therese home, for both the old people were fond and proud of their grandchild in their different ways, but Doctor Campbell thought it would hardly be prudent to expose Therese to the excitement of talking over family matters and meeting family friends, and Miss Baby had invited her to remain till Mrs. Tremaine's return.

Kitty came up to see her every few days, and the two girls had many long talks together, sitting under the great elm tree, or walking by the side of the brook in the meadow, or over the big wheel on which Therese was a skilful and rapid performer, and which Kitty, was learning to manage almost as well as herself. To Kitty, and to her alone, Therese repeated her conversation with old Hector and its effect on her own mind, and Kitty sympathized with and understood her.

The girls took some pains to include Marion in their walks and talks, but without success. In truth, Marion was jealous. She had always coveted an intimacy with Kitty, but Kitty did not respond. Kind and obliging and ready to help Marion on all occasions, she did not however care for those long, whispered conversations in which Marion delighted, and she did not sympathize with Marion's grievances in school. Kitty adored Miss Oliver, and thought the school perfect, and she rather resented Marion's complaints as imputations on her friends.

Therese had much the same feeling for Kitty that Kitty had for Miss Oliver, and moreover regarded the lot of a Crocker school-girl as one of the most enviable which this world afforded. Then Kitty had done a great deal for Therese, and naturally liked her on that account.

Marion was walking home from school in anything but a comfortable mood. For a while, after Miss Oliver's warning, she had done much better, greatly to the satisfaction of the teacher. But she had latterly become careless again. The heiress of the McGregors was once more suffered to intrude herself into the school-room, and her society was not favourable to lessons. She had latterly come out in a new character.

Uncle Alick had taken occasion to abstract Marion's favourite volume from the Sunday school library, together with several others which did not meet with his approbation. Marion however, had gained possession of it and read it again and again, and the more she read it, the more resemblance she saw between the heroine and herself. Maria, the heroine, was brought up in the country by an uncongenial aunt and uncle, who wanted her to work—so was she. Maria had aspirations with which nobody sympathized, and longed to make for herself a career, and to accomplish some grand work for humanity—so did she. She spent hours in dreaming over this great work, which was sometimes the founding of a sisterhood, sometimes of a hospital, sometimes the writing of a book which should take then world by storm, but always something which should redound to the praise and glory of Marion McGregor.

There was one point, however, in which Marion could not bring herself to sympathize with her favourite heroine. Maria, in casting away the restraints and duties of her home, had also cast behind her, as the author expressed it, "the restraints and trammels of that narrow and oppressive theology in which she had been brought up."

Marion could not have done this, even if she had wished; and, to do her justice, she did not wish it. She had been religiously educated, and she was punctual in fulfilling certain religious duties. At times, indeed, she thought herself decidedly a Christian, because she had strong religious emotions; because her feelings were touched by some tale of self-sacrificing godliness, or her taste gratified by some fine sermon or piece of sacred poetry. She had a vague longing for something that she called "the higher life," because she had read the phrase in some book which pleased her, but she couldn't in the least define what she meant or wanted. But she was not willing to own even to herself that most of her life had been a mistake, that she had failed and was failing in almost everything. She would not own to herself, much less to her aunt and Miss Oliver, that she had been idle, selfish, and discontented; that she had made false excuses, and taken dishonest ways of helping herself out when her lessons were not learned or her exercises were not ready. She could not bring herself to own that she habitually disregarded the comfort and the feelings of others, while she expected everybody to consider her own. Above all, she could not bear to give up her darling day-dreams of wealth, splendour, and distinction. She would not take up the cross, and therefore she could not be a disciple. But she always hoped that a time would come when, as she said, "her hindrances would be removed," and it would be easy for her to become out and out a Christian. In the mean time her prayers and her Bible-readings kept her from drifting utterly away, and at least stored her memory with seeds of truth which might some time or other blossom and bear fruit.

Marion, as I said, was walking home from school in a very uncomfortable frame of mind. She had been kept after school, but only for a few minutes, while Miss Oliver kindly and sadly but forcibly warned her that unless the next three weeks showed a very decided amendment, her name must be erased from the roll of the Crocker school. Miss Oliver had not wasted many words.

"I shall not lecture you, Marion. I know that you dislike it and that it is utterly useless. You know your duty without my telling you. You know that you are wasting your time and opportunities, misusing your talents and injuring the school by your bad example. No words would make that any plainer to you than it is now, and I shall therefore spare my time and yours. You had no right to expect another warning but, because I love you and respect your family I give it you. You cannot honestly say that I have ever been unjust to you or that I have not given you every chance. I have bestowed as much labour on you as on any girl in the school, but I see that it is thrown away, and I cannot afford to throw it away any longer."

Miss Oliver's manner was not only serious but solemn, and Marion's heart was touched and her conscience stirred in spite of herself. She knew that Miss Oliver spoke only truth, and for a moment she thought she would say she was sorry and promise to do better; but she did not. While she was hesitating, Miss Oliver was called away and the chance was lost for ever.

"It is just as well," said Marion to herself. "Very likely she would say she didn't want any professions or something else like that, and besides I don't really believe she would dare turn me out, when Uncle Alick is one of the trustees. But I do mean to do better. I have been behindhand this week, that's a fact. Even Jane Dryer has got above me. Oh, dear! How I do wish I could get away from it all and begin new! Things have got so wrong that they will never come right. If I could begin in a new place, I know I should do better, but there is no use in it here where everything would be remembered against me."

As Marion came to the turn in the valley I have spoken of before, she met Therese and Kitty. Therese's face wore more of its old joyous expression than it had done since the day she discovered her mother's absence, and she and Kitty were chattering volubly in French.

"They think she has so much feeling," said Marion to herself. "I don't believe Aunt Christian would think so if she were to see her now."

"Oh, Marion, I was coming to meet you," said Therese, breaking off her conversation as she caught sight of Marion. "There is a letter for you at home. It came with one to Miss Baby, and I think it is from your father-in-law or your mother, because there is a written post-mark on the outside."

"Well, good-night, girls. I must hurry home," said Kitty. "Therese, mother says she shall expect you to-morrow." And she added a few words in French, to which Therese responded and went on her way.

"I don't think Kitty is very polite to be talking French before me," said Marion, as they turned toward the red house.

"Oh, that was nothing. It only meant 'Rest well and have sweet dreams.' It is a line from a French song that she sings," said Therese. "Kitty wouldn't be rude for anything, I am sure."

"Why didn't she come to school this afternoon?" asked Marion.

"She was excused because her mother came home this morning and there was a great deal to see to. Just think! Mrs. Tremaine has had some money left her in France that she didn't expect the least in the world: isn't that nice? I think it is such fun to have things come that you don't expect."

"I think they are always having things left them," remarked Marion. "There was that old lady who gave Kitty her furniture."

"Yes, but they did not get any money that time, only clothes and furniture and books. Kitty told me so herself. She says she never can have a new dress because she must wear out all Mrs. Leffington's old ones."

"I don't think she need mind that so long as they are so handsome," said Marion. "I am sure I wouldn't complain if I had such merinos and cloths for Sunday as Kitty wears to school."

"She doesn't complain, only in fun. She likes them better than new ones. Her mother won't let her have the handsomest—the silks and velvets and so on—because she says they are not suitable for a little girl. Oh, I am so glad Mrs. Tremaine has come home, only she isn't going to stay. I'll tell you something about that; only don't tell, because perhaps she wouldn't care to have it talked about till it is all settled. You know I told you that she had some property left her in France."

"Well?" said Marion, much interested and forgetting her own troubles for the minute.

"Well, a part of the property is a house in a town somewhere near Paris; I can't think of the name, but it is a very pretty place, and the house is a very nice house, only old-fashioned. I don't just understand how it is, but by the way the will is made Mrs. Tremaine has to live in the house a certain time, and so she is going to close her house here and sail for France the last of August; and if grandfather is willing, she is going to take me with her. Just think of that!"

"It is exactly like something in a novel," said Marion. "To go and live in an old house in France, with the old furniture and everything! I should think you would be ready to fly."

"It isn't settled yet, you know," said Therese. "But I am glad, for a good many reasons. I am glad not to have to leave Mrs. Tremaine and Kitty, whom I love dearly; and as things are, I am not very sorry to go away from Holford, though every one has been very good to me."

"I am sure I wish somebody would take me away," said Marion. "I would give anything to get away from the old place and never see it again."

"Oh, Marion, how can you, when you have such a lovely home!" exclaimed Therese reproachfully. "You wouldn't want to go and leave your grandfather and your aunt and uncle? I think they are the very best people I ever saw."

Marion was saved the necessity of an answer by their arrival at the door, where Aunt Baby stood waiting with a letter in her hand. There were traces of tears in her eyes, an unwonted sight, but she welcomed the girls cheerfully as usual.

"I have a letter for you, Marie," said she. "What kept you so long?"

"I had to stay to finish up something," answered Marion, giving her usual excuse. "Where is the letter?"

"Here on the table."

Marion seized it eagerly.

"From Hemlock Valley!" said she, as she tore open the envelope. "I wonder what has made mother write so soon again?"

"You will see when you read it."

Marion hurried through her letter, and then burst out—

"Oh, how splendid! How delightful! Just think, Therese Mr. Van Alstine has an excellent teacher for his children and those of his partner Mr. Overbeck, and he wants me to come and be educated with them. He says the lady is very accomplished, and I shall have every advantage, and by and by perhaps he will send me to boarding-school. Isn't that lovely, and coming just now, too? When shall I go, Aunt Baby?"

But Aunt Baby had left the room, and it was Aunt Christian who answered rather gravely:

"You are in a great hurry, Marion. It is not decided that you are to go at all yet. Mr. and Mrs. Van Alstine refer the matter entirely to your aunt and your grandfather. Nothing has been decided yet."

"Oh, but of course it will be settled so. It must be!" exclaimed Marion. "Mother has a right to me if she wants me!"

"Some people might think Aunt Baby had some rights in the case, seeing she has taken care of you almost ever since you were born," said Mrs. Campbell.

"I don't think Aunt Baby ought to put herself in the way when the change is so much for my advantage," said Marion. "She ought to consider me and not herself altogether, I think."

"If she does consider herself, it will be the first time I have ever known her to do such a thing," said Mrs. Campbell, considerably provoked. "I think you had better go by all means, Marion, and perhaps you may find that every change is not an improvement."

She left the room as she spoke.

Therese, with her usual tact, had withdrawn at the beginning of the dialogue, and when Marion found herself alone she began to consider her words as usual, and to reflect that Aunt Christian would think her very heartless for being so ready to leave her home.

But her pleasure in the prospect before her was too great to allow her to torment herself very long on that account. How splendid it would be! She would be the only girl in a family of boys. That of itself would be a distinction. She resolved at once that she would be a model only sister. No doubt the boys were rough cubs, rude to each other, careless and overbearing, if not absolutely unkind to their stepmother. Mr. Van Alstine was a hemlock tanner as his father and grandfather had been before him, and by consequence had lived in the woods all his life. Of course he was an ignorant man, and his sons would be like him. There would probably be a rude plenty, but no refinement or elegance: the boys would sit with their hats on, eat with their knives, and put their feet on the mantel-piece. She would be the refining and civilizing influence which should support her feeble mother, conciliate the rough father-in-law and convert by degrees this den of bears into a household of gentlemen. She would support the teacher's authority, sympathize with her trials and tastes and smooth the roughness of her way.

"And won't I be glad to tell Miss Oliver that I am not coming to school any more! She thought she was going to turn me off, and now I shall turn her off instead."

Such was the somewhat inconsistent conclusion to Marion's reflections, but she saw no inconsistency. The career for which she had been sighing had come to her unsought. She was going to have the new place and the new "beginning" she had wished for, and to leave all her troubles behind her.

Marion was leaning out of her window as she indulged in these pleasing dreams, when she suddenly became aware that her case was being discussed in the room below. It was not very dignified to listen, but the temptation to know what her friends really thought of the project was strong.

"I think myself the child had better go," said her grandfather. "The truth is we have spoiled her here among us, and her faults are partly ours."

"I have not meant to spoil her," said Miss Baby.

"No, you have meant to do nothing but what was right, I am sure, but you have after all made yourself a kind of slave to Marion. You have always taken every stick and stone out of her way; you have taken on yourself all the work that was anyway hard or disagreeable, and left to her only that which was light and easy. You have denied your own tastes and fancies, that hers might be gratified; and worked far harder than you ought in order that she might have time to study. We have all done it, more or less, but you most of all. We have spoiled the child among us, there is no denying it, and we ought not to expect her to be grateful for the spoiling."

"You know I thought it would be better to keep Marion at home and at work this summer," said Alick; "and something Miss Oliver told me yesterday has confirmed me in my opinion. She says Marion has not done well at all the last year, and that she is injuring the school by her bad example. I thought to speak to Marion about the matter, but as she is to go away so soon, perhaps it is not worth while."

"I dare say she will do better in a new place," observed Aunt Christian. "A change of scene and circumstances often works wonders. Marion seems to me to be bright enough."

"Miss Oliver says that is not the trouble; she says Marion will not work."

"Perhaps she is a little unjust. Teachers do sometimes take dislikes to particular scholars, there is no denying that. I know Miss Parsons did to me."

"Yes, because you would ask inconvenient questions, which she could not answer. I don't think that Miss Oliver is prejudiced against Marion, however; she seemed to regret her conduct very much."

"It is only natural that Marion should like the prospect of a change," said Miss Baby. "I don't blame her for it at all. I suppose I have waited on her and indulged her more than I ought. I am afraid Eiley may do the same thing."

"The little fellow they had with them in New York seemed to be in excellent order, I thought," remarked Doctor Campbell; "I should say Van Alstine was not a man to be trifled with. He looks to me as if he might rule with a pretty firm hand, and be rather alarming if one rebelled. How many children are there?"

"Four or five boys at home and one married, besides a daughter who is married to his partner, Mr. Overbeck."

"She is not his own, I believe, but either an adopted child or a step-daughter," said Miss Baby; "she always calls Eiley 'Mother,' and Eiley seems to like her very much. Fancy our Eiley being called grandmother by a great girl fourteen years old!"

"I felt badly when I heard of Eiley's second marriage, but it has certainly turned out very well, much better than her first unlucky venture," observed Christian. "I see Marion has very exalted ideas of her father. What has become of all the poor man's pictures?"

"They are all put away in the garret and locked up," answered Miss Barbara. "I could not have them round; they were too dreadful. It seemed the kindest thing to put them out of sight and out of mind."

"Well, bairns, it is quite time we were all abed," said old Hector. "I think we have all decided rightly, and that it is best for the lassie to go. If the arrangement does not answer, she can always come back. Poor thing! She knows no more of what is before her than a chicken before it chips the shell."

Marion withdrew from the window and hastily prepared for bed. She was sure of going, that was one comfort. But to think that grandfather should call her "a spoiled child," and think that Aunt Barbara had been her "slave!"

"Perhaps they may find out the difference when I am gone," said she proudly. "Perhaps when Aunt Baby finds she has all the errands and the rest on her hands, she will know that she has not done everything, But never mind, let her think so if it does her any good, poor soul! I dare say it does look that way to her. People do so like to think themselves abused, and it is a pity if she can't enjoy the privilege. I am sure I won't do anything to destroy the illusion." So magnanimously resolved Marion, who always bitterly resented being thought better off than her neighbours.

CHAPTER X.

GOING AND STAYING.

MARION waked in the morning with a general impression that something very delightful had happened, but it was some minutes before she could disentangle her recollections. At last, however, it came to her. She was really going away, going to begin the world anew as she had wished. She was going where she would have a chance to show what she could do, and where she would not be looked down upon, and treated like a baby, as she was now.

As she lay and looked round her pretty little room with its old-fashioned furniture almost black with age, the carved cabinet which did duty as a bureau, the looking-glass with its queer frame of black wood and tarnished gilding, the muslin-covered toilet-table which Aunt Baby had dressed up in one of her own old flowered dresses as a surprise for Marion's birthday, she wondered how it would seem to wake in a new place.

"Of course I shall go to work and make my room as pretty as I can. I mean to begin some mats and tidies and a scrap-bag, and have some glasses for flowers. I mean to ask Aunt Baby to let me have father's pictures and hang them up—at least some of them. Perhaps some day I shall have a fine house and picture galleries of my own, and then dear father's works shall be appreciated at last. Of course poor dear Aunt Baby could not be expected to see anything in them."

Then returning to her room: "I shall have my Bible and books of course, and when the little boys come in to see me, as I shall let them when they are very good, I shall read to them and tell them Bible stories. Perhaps I shall get them to have family worship after a while."

Marion lay indulging in these delightful visions till the striking clock warned her that it was time to get up. She had resolved on being very kind and amiable to everybody, so as to leave none but pleasant remembrances behind her. Especially she would be very considerate to Aunt Baby. After all, she had meant to be kind, and had been so according to her lights. As Christian said, the idea of her own superiority was firmly fixed in Marion's mind, especially of her superiority to her own family.

"I suppose Marie must have some new clothes," said Hector McGregor at breakfast. "We must not let her go among her new friends with nothing to wear."

"I don't think you need take any trouble about that, grandfather," said Marion, "I dare say father—I mean Mr. Van Alstine—will provide all that is necessary."

"I dare say Ezra will do what is right, my dear, but I should not like you to begin by asking him for something to wear," said Miss Baby. "Aunt Christian has to go to T— for two or three days. We will just look over your things and see what is needed, and she will buy it for us."

The clothes were looked over, and it was decided that Marion should have a new black silk, a muslin and some other articles of minor importance.

"Don't you mean to send for your summer shawl, Aunt Baby?" asked Marion. "You won't have another so good a chance."

"No, dear; I don't think I shall buy a summer shawl just at present," answered Aunt Baby, quietly. "My old one will do very well for some time yet."

"Well, I wonder how you can bear to wear that old snuff-coloured Canton crape that is as well-known as the meeting-house," said Marion.

And it was not till some hours afterward that she suspected that the price of Aunt Baby's new summer shawl had gone into her black silk. It was not that Marion meant to be ungrateful so much as that she did not think. Her heart was never—

"At leisure from itself"

to consider the claims and feelings of others.

"Aunt Baby, I wish you would let me have the key of the east garret," said Marion next day after doctor and Mrs. Campbell had gone; "I want to look at father's pictures."

Miss Baby hesitated.

"Marie dear, I don't think I would touch them if I were you. I don't think you will find any pleasure in them."

"I can tell better when I see them," said Marion, loftily. "I think I have a right to the things which belonged to him, and whatever his faults were, he was my father."

"True, my dear. I would have you respect his memory, and for that very reason I would let the dead rest. However, take ell own way, lassie," she added, as Marion made a gesture of impatience. "Here is the key. Bring it back when you have done with it."

"I suppose I can have some of the pictures to take with me," said Marion; "and the rest can stay here till I have a house of my own."

"Oh yes, they can stay; never fear."

Marion ran up to the east garret, as it was called, and opened the stiff and seldom-used door. The place was not so much a garret as a little chamber in the roof, with a large dormer window a good deal darkened first by dust and cobwebs and secondly by an old green curtain.

Marion went down for a broom, with which she brushed away the cobwebs. She rolled up the curtain, threw open the window, and then looked eagerly about her.

A quantity of rather thin new-looking books were piled on the floor in one corner. In another were a number of large unframed canvases leaning against the wall. Marion eagerly seized upon two and turned them round. Her heart sank at the first glance, but she resolutely wiped the dust from their faces and placed them in the most favourable light and sat down on an old chair to look at them. Alas for her dreams of picture galleries and posthumous fame for her poor father! One of the pictures represented a broad pewter-coloured river running down the middle of the canvas at a very steep angle. On one verdigris-coloured bank was a large red church, which seemed on the point of slipping out of the picture. On the other, exactly opposite, was a large red house similarly endangered. A cow which, judging from the rest of the picture, must have been about sixty feet long, was standing lengthwise in the pewter river, to which if turned across she would have made a convenient bridge. The other picture was worse if possible than the first.

Marion had a correct eye and some knowledge of drawing, but these were hardly required to show that the pictures were the most wretched daubs imaginable. She hastily pushed them back into their original position, and was about to close the window when her eye fell on the books. They might be better, and she took one and opened it at random. The volume was prettily printed on nice paper, and must have cost a good deal. The first poem she lighted on was called "The Rose," and read as follows:

"The rose is a beautiful flower,

It holds up its elegant head

Above all the rest in the bower,

And gives a sweet scent when it's dead.

"A beautiful blue is the violet,

Round and white is the snowball,

But, love, when you send me a bouquet,

Oh, let a sweet rose crown them all!"

and so on for many verses. This elegant poem was a fair sample of the contents of the volume.

Marion threw it down and burst into very pardonable tears of mortification and disgust. Her visions of vindicating the reputation of her dead father were among the least selfish and narrow of her many day-dreams, and it was indeed very hard to have them so rudely dispelled.

"Marie dear, don't cry," said a gentle voice, and Aunt Baby's hand was laid on her head.

"Oh, Aunt Baby, I wish I had taken your advice," sobbed Marion, laying her head on her aunt's shoulder as the latter knelt beside her. "I wish I had never looked at the things. They ought not to have been kept. They ought to be burned up."

"My dear, I have said that to myself a great many times, but it isn't a very easy matter to burn up two or three hundred bound volumes all at once. I might have used them for kindling, but I had a kind of tenderness for the poor things after all. Your father thought them so fine, it seemed almost cruel to treat them in that way. So I e'en piled them all up here, and left them to the mice."

"But they are such—such horrible trash," said Marion, picking up the volume she had dropped. "They are not even good grammar. Just see here:

"'Oh, what an impulsive truant love thou art!

Thou first subdues then inspirates the heart!'

"I don't see how he ever got any one to publish them!"

"He could not get any one to publish them, and wasted a great deal of money in printing them himself: I don't want to blame him now that he is away, but you can see what a distress and mortification it was to all of us, especially as your poor mother's little portion and earnings were all wasted in such undertakings, and she actually suffered. From what I have learned since, I have very little doubt that the death of Eiley's first child was caused by its mother's want of the common necessaries of life, while its father was refusing work which would have supported his family, to paint pictures and write poems such as these."

"But my mother never would have thought anything of this rubbish," said Marion. "She must have known better."

"Of course she did. That was not one of the least of her many troubles. But if she ever said a word, her husband talked of the trials of genius and bemoaned his hard fate in being yoked to such an uncongenial mate, the doited haverel," said Aunt Baby in sudden impatience. "My dear, I beg your pardon, I ought not to speak so of your father before you. There, let us put the books and pictures away and close the door on them."

"I mean to ask Uncle Alick to burn them all up some time when he is burning a log heap," said Marion.

"That is a very good notion. I never thought of it," said Aunt Baby. "There, don't cry any more. I never meant you should see these things, for I knew they would vex you."

"She is just as good as she can be," said Marion to herself as she went to her room to wash her hands and brush the dust from her dress. "I won't do a single thing to tease her as long as I stay, and I will help her all I can. It was very good of her to give up her new shawl, and it isn't her fault if she doesn't understand me."

And then Marion blushed as she remembered how her father had considered himself a misunderstood genius. "I wonder if I am like him," she thought. "Aunt Baby must have remembered him ever so many times when I talked of being misunderstood. I will never do it again, I know that."

The lesson she had received was not lost upon Marion. She certainly was far more modest and amiable than usual during the remainder of her stay at home. She took her share of the household work without grumbling, and tried to anticipate her aunt and to save her steps. She even made a resolution to forego the society of the heiress of the McGregors, and kept it for at least forty-eight hours. She read her Bible punctually, and spent more time than usual in prayer.

But she did not go to the root of the matter. She had not learned to call by their right names the great faults of her character, her self-consciousness, conceit and habitual contempt for those about her. She did not see these things in the light of sins to be prayed and striven against. She knew that people considered her self-conceited, but that was only because "they did not understand her."

Consequently, it was not long before her day-dreams resumed their sway. She was once more the model daughter and sister who was to bring order out of chaos and elegance and refinement out of vulgarity. Her very religious exercises ministered to her delusion. With her vigorous imagination, it was not difficult for her to work herself up into a state of exalted feeling, and she found pleasure in so doing. She took this feeling as an evidence that she was truly converted. She applied to her daily conduct none of those Scripture tests which seem given especially to guard against such delusions as hers.

"If ye love me, keep my commandments."

"He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me."

"If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above."

Marion never thought of applying any such tests as these. She pleased herself with dreams of influencing her unknown father and brothers, of establishing Sunday schools among an all but heathen population of workmen and their families, even of persuading her father and brother-in-law to build a church; but all the time it was Marion McGregor who was to have the honour. Not that she said this in so many words, but it was at the bottom of all her schemes. She was not undeceived when she forgot her Sunday school lesson in her ideal class, lost the whole church service, sermon and all, in dreaming over the church she meant to build, and spent the time devoted to her private devotions in the same way.

The circumstances of Marion's journey were all arranged. She was to travel with Doctor and Mrs. Campbell to New York. The doctor would put her on the train for the nearest station to Hemlock Valley, under the care of the conductor, and she would have no changes after that; her stepfather or one of the boys would meet her at the station, and take her home.

The day before her departure arrived, and Marion had been down to the village to say some good-byes and make some last little purchases. She was not in quite as good spirits as she had been. After all, it was a serious thing to leave her friends who had brought her up, and the place which had always been her home, and go away among strangers. She began to appreciate the love which had always surround her, and to have some few stirrings of conscience as to the way she had received and recompensed that love. Her grandfather, vigorous as he was, had long passed the usual term of human life, and Marion felt that she might very probably never see him again.

"I wish I had not seemed so glad to go," thought Marion; "they will all think I am very unfeeling. Here are Kitty and Therese coming; I wonder if they have been up to our house. I wish I was going to Paris like Therese, instead of into the woods, though after all I suppose she will be only a servant."

"We have been up to see you," said Kitty, when they met; "I suppose you will be going to-morrow."

"Yes, by the early express; but I shall not get home till night to-morrow, Uncle Duncan says. And you?"

"We go to New York in two weeks, but we shall not sail for some time," answered Kitty. "Only think, Marion, Therese is not going after all. Isn't it too bad?"

"Not going!" exclaimed Marion; "Why, I thought it was all settled."

"So it was, but it has been unsettled again," said Therese; "that is the way with things in this world, you know."

"But how?"

"Well, Grandmother Duval is very feeble; she has no relation but me in the world, that she knows of. She isn't fit to stay alone, and she doesn't like having a stranger; so there seems a clear call for me to stay."

"But what does Mrs. Tremaine say?"

"She thinks I am right, and so does Mrs. Parmalee, and I am sure I am," answered Therese. "Grand-mère Duval has always been the kindest of the kind to me, and now it is my turn to do something for her."

"Well, I think she is very mean and selfish to require such a sacrifice," said Marion, with her usual want of consideration; "she ought to be willing to give up something for your sake, and not expect you to sacrifice such advantages for improving yourself."

"I suppose the best way of improving one's self is by doing one's duty," said Therese with some animation. "If you knew my grandmother, Marion, you would never think of calling her selfish. She never asked me to stay. But I know it will be a great comfort to her, and indeed I don't see how she could do without me. She is very much changed and broken since—since I was sick. She is unfit to be alone, and there is nobody else to stay with her. She did all she could for me, and, as I said, now it is my turn to do for her."

"But were you not dreadfully disappointed?" asked Marion, with an uncomfortable feeling that these words might somehow apply to herself.

"Why yes, I was, there is no denying it," answered Therese, winking her long lashes pretty hard, but smiling brightly at the same time. "However, it is not an unmixed disappointment after all. I am going to step into your shoes, Marion. Miss Tilly has given me her scholarship in the Crocker school."

"Why, what has Miss Tilly to do with it, and how does she come to have a scholarship?" asked Marion.

"Because her name is Crocker," answered Kitty. "There is a great deal in a name sometimes. Cousin Tilly is one of the two remaining descendants of old Mr. Crocker who founded and endowed the school before the Revolution. She is his great-granddaughter, and, as such, has the right of nominating two pupils to the school whenever there are vacancies. I have one scholarship, and I have lent it to Mary Parmalee's cousin for the present. The other has been vacant some time, and Cousin Tilly has given it to Therese."

"Well, I'm sure she is welcome to it for me, and I wish her joy of it," said Marion; "I know you all think Miss Oliver perfection, but I never could see her merit, though she does very well for a little place like this."

"Mamma thinks Miss Oliver is one of the best teachers she ever knew anywhere," said Kitty.

"She never understood me," replied Marion; "but as she is obliged to teach for a living, it is a good thing that somebody wants her."

"I hope somebody will want me when I am educated," said Therese. "Well, Kitty, we ought to be going. Good-bye, Marion; I hope you will have a pleasant journey."

"I wonder if Aunt Baby thinks I ought to stay at home and help her?" thought Marion as she went on her way homeward. "I suppose she has really done a good deal more for me than Therese's grandmother for her."

But these thoughts were not agreeable, and Marion returned to her day-dreams.

The next morning she set out on her journey.

CHAPTER XI.

"THE CLEAR CALL."

THERESE had not come to her conclusion without a good deal of hesitation and not a few tears. It was not in nature willingly to give up such a brilliant prospect as that which Mrs. Tremaine's plan had opened to her without a severe struggle.

The matter was as she had told Marion. Mrs. Tremaine had most unexpectedly inherited from an old relative of her late husband an estate in one of the small towns near Paris, with a considerable sum of money, on the condition that she should make the old house her home for two or three years. She was not fond of Paris. She had once resided there for several years, and her remembrances of the time were far from agreeable, but she felt that it was hardly right to refuse such an accession to the small property which Kitty would have to depend upon in case of her death. The arrangement would give Kitty the advantage of excellent teachers for the ornamental parts of her education—advantages which she could hardly attain while living in Holford, and which Mrs. Tremaine was far from despising, and it would give her an opportunity of benefiting Therese, in whom she was much interested. So after much consideration she decided to close her house in Holford and go abroad.

Of course the girls were delighted. Kitty was very fond of Therese, and enjoyed the prospect of having her as a companion in her studies and amusements. Therese was happy in the thought of being able to prepare herself for a first-rate teacher, and she and Kitty held many long talks on the subject, Kitty recalling for Therese's benefit all her juvenile recollections of Paris. Kitty had been too young to share in her mother's anxieties and perplexities, and her remembrances were of unmixed pleasure: of walks under the trees in the Champs Elysées, of beautiful shops and delicious bonbons. It was no wonder that she was pleased at the thought of returning to such a Paradise.

Grandfather Beaubien at once gave his consent to the arrangement. He had unlimited confidence in Mrs. Tremaine, and he thought Therese would be better off in a new place where nobody would know or cast up to her the faults and disgrace of her father and mother. The old man was far above that mean jealousy which makes some parents in such cases resent any improvement in the circumstances of a child as an injury to themselves.

"Go, go, my good child," he had said to Therese. "Thou hast been a dutiful daughter, and no doubt the blessing will go with thee. Madame is an angel of goodness and rectitude. She will care for thee, she will educate thee. Thou wilt reflect honour on her and on thy own family. For me, I have dutiful children to care for me in my age and enough for all my simple wants. Be a good child, be obedient to Madame, forget not to pray for thy grandfather and thy unfortunate parents, and the blessing of the good God go with thee. If thou shouldst go to Normandy, try to seek out the graves of thy kindred and lay some flowers thereon for me."

As Therese was going toward Madame Duval's neat little house, she met Doctor Gates in his carriage, who drew up to the side of the road to speak to her.

"Are you going to your grandmother's, Therese? I have just been to see her."

"To see grandmother! I did not know she was sick," said Therese in alarm. "Did she send for you?"

"Not she indeed," answered the doctor, smiling. "Madeline Lenoir told me she was not well, and I stopped at her house. I think there is a great change in her, Therese. Cannot you persuade her to have somebody with her? She is not fit to live alone any more."

"I have felt unhappy about her being alone for some time," answered Therese; "but she is not willing to take any stranger into her house."

"That is very natural," replied Doctor Gates; "but it does not alter the facts of the case; she is no longer capable of taking care of herself and her house as she has done, of making her own fire and cooking her own meals. Madeline says she goes in as often as she can, but of course she has her own family to attend to. Turn it over in your mind, Therese, and see what can be done about it. Good-bye."

The doctor touched up his horse, and Therese went on her way. She found her grandmother sitting up as usual by the window, her dress in the best order, her knitting in her hands, and her great French Bible, an heirloom of many generations, open on the table at her elbow. Everything in the room was in its customary order, and shining with neatness, from the well-polished stove to the tortoise-shell cat and her two white kittens; but Therese was startled with the change in the old lady herself.

"Have you been ill, grand-mère?" asked Therese.

"No, my child, not ill. I have not been well for some days past; I have had a shock, and it is not in nature that an old woman like me should not feel it. I am eighty years old this month."

"I did not think you were as old as that."

"Yes, your poor mother was my youngest child, the last survivor of six hopeful children who all died in childhood; and but for thee, Therese, I could find it in my heart to regret that she had not slept with them."

This was the first time grand-mère had mentioned her mother to Therese.

"But thou art a good child, Therese, and I am glad thou hast such kind friends; thou canst say,—

"'When my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up.'

"Tell me about thy prospects."

Therese repeated what we have heard of Mrs. Tremaine's plans, concluding with—"And when I come back, grand-mère, I shall be able to have a school of my own like Miss Oliver's, and make a home for thee, and perhaps for poor mamma also, if she should return."

The old lady smiled, but shook her head. "May thy dreams be fulfilled, child, but I shall never see them. I shall be in a fairer home than thine long before that time. I could have wished to have thee beside me to close my eyes, but it is to be otherwise, and I shall not be left alone. There, do not weep, my Therese, but listen while I tell thee the disposition of my affairs, that thou mayst remember them. I have made my will according to the law of the land, and it is in good Mr. McGregor's hands. Thou wilt inherit this house and all that I have; it is not much.

"But, Therese, keep carefully the clock and the old bureau and carved chest; they came from France with my father when he fled for his life in the persecuting times, when France, like Jerusalem, killed her prophets, and stoned them that were sent unto her. * And this Bible," said she, turning over the leaves and showing Therese a dark stain she had often seen before—"see, it is wet with the blood of the martyr, thy great-grandfather. He was shot down at a preaching. The people were collected in a close, narrow valley, at a communion; they were surprised by the troops, who fired volley after volley among them. My grandfather was shot down and died on the spot; my uncle and father escaped to carry the news and this book to their mother. They found that the enemy had been there during their absence. They left her half dead, and carried away her only girl, a child of ten years old. She never saw the child again."

* We are apt to think of Romanist persecution as entirely a thing of the past. At the very time when Lafayette was fighting our battles, there were multitudes of pastors and gentlemen in the galleys of Marseilles and Toulon for no other offence than that of being Protestants.

"What became of her?" anxiously inquired Therese.

"Nobody knows. She was doubtless taken to some convent where she was brought up to deny the faith of her fathers; perhaps to die for the truth, as younger children have done before now. The poor woman herself soon after died. Her sons, after long lurking in dens and caves of the earth, at last escaped, and came to Canada, where they had relations and friends and found peace and safety. They preserved this book through all, and thou must preserve it too. And, Therese, if thou art ever tempted to desert the faith, remember the line of which thou art sprung. Look unto the rock from which thou art hewn, and the hole of the pit from whence thou art digged. Thou art come of a race of martyrs, men and women, aye, and children, who thought of and cared for nothing in comparison of the truth and their duty. Be not thou unworthy of them. Count not thy life nor any part of it dear unto thyself if God calls thee to lay it down."

This was a long speech for Grand-mère Duval, who was usually a woman of few words.

Therese listened with silent and respectful interest. She had often tried to set her grandmother talking of these matters, but hitherto without much success. Now she ventured to ask a question which she had not dared to broach:

"Grand-mère, maman gave me a picture. She said you would tell me the story about it."

She drew from her pocket as she spoke the miniature which her mother had given her.

Grand-mère took it and looked at it long and earnestly.

"Thou art her namesake, Therese. She was thy great-grandmother—the one of whom I have been telling thee. She came of a noble French family who cast her off because she embraced the Reformed faith. They would have shut her up, but she escaped to the good pastor Rabant, who gave her shelter, and there thy great-grandfather found and married her."

"I have seen somebody very much like her, but I cannot think who," said Therese, studying the picture intently.

Grandma Duval smiled. "Look in the glass, my child. Thou art the very picture of that poor afflicted one. Mayst thou have her faith and steadfastness to lay down all at the call of duty! But art thou not staying too long, my child?"

"Mrs. Tremaine said I might stay as long as you liked to have me," said Therese. "Let me get your supper for you."

"Gladly, so thou wilt share it with me. It is a pleasure to see thee going about. If I had a little house-fairy like thee, I might consent to follow the good doctor's advice and have somebody to stay with me."

"It troubles me to think of your being alone," said Therese, glad to have her grandmother touch on the delicate subject of her own accord. "Is there nobody—Joujou Lenoir, now—"

Grand-mère Duval made a face of disgust. "Bah! She is a break-all, a what say you? A slattern, a gad-about. She would drive me mad. I cannot bear the thought of a stranger about me. No, no, child, that can never be."

Therese understood her grandmother well enough to know that there was no use in saying any more. She got the supper ready, milked the little cow, which was one of the old lady's chief sources of revenue, and skimmed the cream, while Madame Duval produced her finest dish of preserved strawberries and her favourite cream-cheese to grace the meal.

"I shall leave thee the receipt for this cheese for part of thy inheritance," said she, with gentle pride; "nobody here knows how to make it rightly."

When the time came for Therese to go, the old lady held her long in a close embrace. It was evident that her heart clung to the child of her poor perverse daughter.

"Thou art my only relative, alas! Save one, living in this country, and it is hard to let thee go," said she; "we shall never meet again in this world, but I shall see thee in heaven."

It was with a heavy heart and a sad face that Therese at last took her leave. She walked slowly homeward, and was very silent all the evening. Before she went to bed, she spent a long time in prayer and in searching her Bible; and when she was at last about to put out her light, she took out the picture of her ancestress and looked at it.

"She counted not her life dear to herself," she murmured; "she laid down all, far more than life, for his sake. Oh, what shall I do? What ought I to do? Oh, make thy way plain before my face, and teach me how to walk therein."

For a day or two, Therese continued silent and preoccupied, and Mrs. Tremaine saw that she had something on her mind. At last she preferred a petition:

"Please, Mrs. Tremaine, may I go out this afternoon? I want to walk up to mother's old house."

Mrs. Tremaine hesitated.

"I will not be gone long," said Therese.

"It is not that," said Mrs. Tremaine, and then added, smiling: "The truth is, Therese, I believe I have a kind of terror of the place."

"I don't think there is any danger," said Therese.

"No, I presume not, and it is natural you should wish to see it again. Yes, you may go, but do not be away very long, or, reasonable or not, I shall be uneasy about you."

Therese promised, and set out on her walk. She had a difficulty to face and question to decide, and she had a feeling that she could settle it better in that place than anywhere else. She walked quickly till she turned into the mountain-road, and then more deliberately till she came to the little farm. It was a lonely place always, and somehow seemed more lonely still for the presence of the little house with its nailed-up windows and smokeless chimney. Therese unlocked the door, and once more explored the rooms, from which the furniture had all been removed. She looked through the closets, and found and treasured up a handkerchief of her mother's. Then she made all secure again, and sat down on the steps to think.

"It is giving up a great deal—a great deal," she said to herself; "there is no use in denying that. It is giving up not only the present pleasure, but all the future gain. If I went abroad and learned French at Paris, I might always earn a good salary, as good or better than Miss Oliver's. But if it is my duty to stay, if it is a sacrifice He asks of me, then all these things go for nothing and less than nothing.

"Grand-mère told me to look to the rock from whence I was hewed. It is not a martyrdom like theirs to which I am called, and yet it is in a way laying down my life. He laid down his life for us, and we also should lay down our lives for the brethren. He laid down his life for us—for me! I can lay down mine for him. Kitty loves me, and will be sorry, but she has her cousins, and she will not want for friends. Grand-mère has nobody but me, and she has always been kind to me—always. Grandfather Beaubien says she was the best of mothers to my poor mother; he says she is a saint, though she is a Protestant. But if she were not, she is old and alone; she has no one but me belonging to her; she is not fit to stay by herself. Doctor Gates says so, and I can see it with my own eyes. If she has to take in a stranger, it will spoil all the comfort of her life, and she may live ever so many years. I believe it is a clear call," said Therese, speaking out loud in her earnestness. "I believe He will give me grace to follow it, and will be with me. He is with me."

Therese bowed her head on her hands, and sat some time without speaking. At last she raised her head, and, startled to see how low the sun was getting, she started up and walked rapidly home.

Life had been altered for Therese since the twilight talk with old Hector McGregor recorded in a past chapter. She had been more or less religiously inclined all her life, and for more than a year past she had been conscientiously and earnestly trying to live a Christian life. She believed all she had been taught, she loved to read her Bible, and prayed in full faith of being heard. But she had never been able to bring the things of eternity so near as to make them seem very real to her. It was hard for her to think that her heavenly Father cared individually for her, that he loved her personally and particularly, and desired her love in return.

Then came the time of great and awful desolation, when she was forsaken by that mother who had been her one object in life hitherto. All her supports seemed cut away. She felt herself adrift, with nothing to do and nobody to work for or to care for her. Heaven seemed very far away. She too might live to be ninety years old, but there would be nobody to care for her as his children did for Hector McGregor. She would always bear the burden of her parents' sins. She would be Tone Beaubien's daughter to the end of the chapter.

But after that evening all was changed. A new life had come to the little girl, still almost a child in years. She had consecrated herself to his service who never causes one to regret such a consecration, and she had received in return the mystical gift, the white stone with a new name written thereon which no man knows but he that hath it. She felt herself accepted. She was no more alone, for one had promised to be with her to the end of the world. He could make hard things easy, or give more grace. He could turn even disgrace and shame to his glory. He would give her work to do for him, and strength and wisdom to do it, and what did she want more?

Therese was no idle dreamer. She did not look forward to doing great things. She knew that not one in a thousand is called to a high place in the sight of men. But she had seen in her grandmother Duval, in Mrs. Tremaine and her cousin, yes, even in Kitty, young as she was, how the little cares and labours of every day may be sanctified so as to make everyday life a blessing to all around. That was what she asked for herself.

Now a greater thing was asked of her, a real taking up of the cross. It was no small sacrifice to renounce such a plan as had been made for her, such a career as had been opened for her, to nurse her grandmother's declining years, to hear all the remarks that would be made and face the misconstructions that would perhaps be put upon her change of plans. She knew there would be trials of temper and patience both at home and abroad. She feared Grandfather Beaubien would be displeased, for the Beaubiens had always felt some lurking jealousy of old Madame Duval, who was the richest of the whole French settlement and had the credit of thinking herself better than her neighbours.

Therese had come to that place where two roads met. One was fair and flowery, leading as it seemed to green pastures and beside still waters, to pleasant heights of prosperity; the other low and somewhat rugged, with few flowers or trees, and leading she could not see where. There was no stopping—no turning back. Therese made her choice. She believed that a beam from heaven shone on the narrow rugged path, that a voice said, "This is the way; walk ye in it," and after a moment's hesitation she resolutely and humbly set her feet therein.

The next day she had a talk with Mrs. Tremaine and Kitty. Kitty could hardly be brought to listen, and exclaimed,—

"After we have it all so nicely arranged! And what shall I do without you? I do think you are too bad, even to think of such a thing!"

"Hush, dear!" said her mother. "Let us hear Therese tell her reasons."

Therese opened her heart to the bottom. She could hardly have done it to any one else; but Mrs. Tremaine had been her Sunday school teacher for years, and Kitty was a second self. Mrs. Tremaine was convinced, and even Kitty was brought to say—

"Well, of course there wouldn't be any comfort if you went against your duty and conscience and thought your grandmother was wanting you all the time. But you must come to us if anything happens, mustn't she, mamma?"

"Certainly—that must be understood. And, Therese, some provision must be made for your education. Would your grandmother spare you to go to school?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am. She doesn't really need a great deal done for her."

"And Therese can have my scholarship, can't she, mamma?"

"I think we can arrange it even better than that, Kitty. Yours has only two years to run. Cousin Tilly's would be better, and as Marion McGregor's withdrawal makes a vacancy, I have no doubt Cousin Tilly will give the nomination to Therese."

So the matter was arranged, and Therese, feeling that her self-denial was already rewarded, went down to communicate the news to her grandmother. Madame Duval made some difficulty about her accepting the sacrifice, but her delight at the proposal could not be concealed. The Beaubiens were less easy to satisfy, but they were easy-going, good-natured people, and the pride and pleasure of seeing their pet's name among the young ladies of the Crocker school helped to smooth matters.

And so it was all concluded at last. Kitty left Therese guardian of her books and all her peculiar treasures and promised to write very often, and Therese settled down in her little white-curtained bedroom at her grandmother's, and began to study with all her might that she might appear with credit at the opening of Miss Oliver's school.

CHAPTER XII.

THE JOURNEY.

MARION had a very pleasant journey to New York, and spent an agreeable day in seeing the wonders of the city. It might have been still more agreeable but for one drawback. That was her dread of being taken for a country girl; an absurd fear lest of all these thousands of people whom she had never seen, and would never see again, somebody should think that she—Marion McGregor—had not lived in the city all her life.

Now it is evident that of the thirty odd millions who inhabit these United States, but a very small part can live in the city, nor is it easy to see how any disgrace should attach to not living in the city; but Marion could not help feeling that it would be a great misfortune should she be suspected of coming from the country. Consequently she was distressed every time her aunt looked into a shop window, and could not enjoy her walk through Stewart's grand establishment, because she was trying so hard to look as though she had seen it all before.

And after all, she had the mortification of overhearing her uncle say to her aunt:

"Poor child, how terribly stiff and awkward she is! Cannot you give her a hint not to look so like a wooden image?"

"I believe it would only make matters worse," said her aunt.

"Well, I can't help thinking it is well she is going to have a change."

"I am sure it is, for more reasons than one. It is Marion's self-consciousness and sense of her own importance which makes her so awkward and constrained. Therese Beaubien has had no more advantages than Marion, and she would appear well anywhere."

So, that was all she got by being dignified, to be called stiff and awkward! At dinner she went to the other extreme, and talked so much and so loudly that Christian was obliged to check her. The check was very gentle, but it sent Marion into a state of offended silence for the rest of the evening, and a fit of crying when she went to bed.

The next morning Doctor Campbell found an acquaintance in a Philadelphia gentleman, who was going for a part of the way by the same road as Marion, and put her under his care. Before breakfast, Aunt Christian entered Marion's room, carrying a very pretty leather travelling-bag, and a writing-case which Marion had admired the day before.

"I have brought you a little keepsake from uncle and myself," said she; "see, can you put this in your trunk."

"Oh, Aunt Christian, how very pretty!" exclaimed Marion. "And what a beautiful travelling-bag! Just exactly what I wanted. But what shall I do with the old one? I don't see how I can carry them both; I believe I will leave it."

"By no means; you will find it very convenient if you want to go away for a night."

"But what will people think to see me with two travelling-bags?"

"Why, they will think you have two travelling-bags; what should they think? Or who do you suppose will trouble themselves about the matter? But if you are distressed about it, I will take possession of the old bag myself. I am by far too old a traveller to be troubled by any kind or amount of baggage. Dear me! When you have gone on a journey or two with your own tents, portable cooking apparatus, bedsteads, and all other conceivable furniture following you on the back of two or three mules, and convoyed by a half a dozen rather more than half naked muleteers, you will trouble yourself very little about an extra parcel or two.

"So let me have the bag if you are afraid of it. I dare say I shall find a use for it; but I advise you instead to keep it, and I will have a nice lunch put up for you. Come now, it is time you were ready for breakfast. Good-bye, Marion. Tell your father and mother we shall come and make them a visit as soon as we get back from the West. And, Marie dear, let me whisper one last word in your ear. Try not to think of yourself and your own dignity; forget yourself in other people, and don't be always looking out for Marion McGregor, and you will do very well."

The Philadelphia gentleman proved to be a pleasant elderly clergyman, who found Marion a seat on the right side of the car, gave her a new magazine to amuse herself with, and then betook himself to his newspaper. The day wore away very agreeably. Mr. Randall was a pleasant, cultivated man, very polite, and treated Marion with the sort of half-gallant half-paternal kindness which elderly gentlemen are apt to assume towards young girls. He talked enough to keep Marion from feeling lonely and embarrassed, pointed out objects of interest along the road, told her odd and interesting anecdotes of his travels in Europe and the East, and when lunch-time came presented her with an orange and two bananas, which latter fruit Marion had never before tasted.

Marion asked him to share the delicate lunch which Aunt Christian's care had provided.

"No, thank you, my dear," replied Mr. Randall. "I shall be at home before long, and I should only spoil my dinner. Luncheon is a meal only thoroughly enjoyed by young folks. I see somebody I want to speak to, so I will leave you to your repast."

And away went Mr. Randall, leaving Marion disturbed by the idea that he considered her young, which as he was towards seventy, it is very likely he did.

"I have been talking to the conductor about you, my dear," said Mr. Randall when, he came back. "He is acquainted with your family, and he tells me there is a lady on board who is going to the next station to yours, so you will have company. You are sure you know where your checks are—that's right. Don't lose them or your purse, and do just as the conductor tells you, and you will be all right. Good-bye, and God bless you."

Marion had no time to feel lonely, for at the moment they started, the conductor came up with a pretty, delicate-looking woman.

"This is the young lady," said he.

"To be sure," said the stranger, pleasantly. "You are Marion McGregor, my father-in-law's step-daughter. I knew you were expected. But you don't know who I am, of course, I am Asahel Van Alstine's wife, and my name is Gertrude. So I hope you will think of me as your sister."

Mrs. Gertrude's manner was very sweet, and she was both pretty and elegant in appearance. Marion liked her at once.

"I suppose they will meet you at the Falls," continued Gertrude. "I wonder they should let you come from New York alone."

"I did not come alone," said Marion. "Uncle Duncan put me under the care of Doctor Randall."

"Yes, I know for part of the way, but I should have thought Harry might have run up to New York. He goes often enough on his own errands. If Asahel were not expecting me, I would go on to the Falls with you myself. If the boys are not down, I don't know what you will do, for there is no place to stay."

"Don't you think they will come to meet me?" asked Marion, rather alarmed. "Uncle Duncan telegraphed from New York yesterday, and they knew besides when I was coming."

"Oh yes, I dare say they will if the horses are not too busy. Father Van Alstine doesn't like to have them taken away from their work. I found that out when I lived there. You have never seen him, have you?"

"Never—but I have his picture in my book. He is a very handsome man, I think."

"Handsome, oh yes, all the family are handsome except Amity, who isn't really one of the family either, though I believe Father Van Alstine thinks more of her than of all the rest put together. Oh yes, I think Father Van Alstine means to do right, only he has a good deal to contend with, and he is naturally overbearing—all the family have that kind of temper. Amity is no exception there. But I dare say you will get on very well, only you must be a little careful not to cross him. I am glad you are come, I am sure, and I hope you will be a comfort to mother, poor thing."

"Why do you say 'poor thing'?" asked Marion.

"Did I say so? Well, I didn't mean anything particular, only you know she has a hard time of it of course, with all those rough noisy boys—and perhaps she is not as good a manager as some. I used to try to help her when I lived in the Valley, but it didn't answer very well. A second wife you know is apt to be jealous of interference, and there was Amity always at hand. But I dare say it will be different with you, being her own daughter."

And so Mrs. Gertrude ran on, always speaking in the most friendly tone of the whole of her husband's family, but managing to insinuate something to the disadvantage of every one. Presently Marion asked some question about the governess.

"The governess? Oh yes, I understand, you mean Mrs. Andrews. So they call her a governess, do they? Well, that is a genteel way of putting it."

"I don't know that any one used the word governess but myself," said Marion, who began to be a little annoyed. "Mother said they had a little family school and a very good teacher. I don't think they mentioned her name at all."

"No, I dare say not. Well, her name is Mrs. Andrews, and she is a widow, a cousin of the Overbecks, and has been a missionary somewhere."

"A missionary!" repeated Marion. "I wonder where! I wonder if Aunt Christian knows her."

"Very likely. All that kind of people seem to know one another more or less," said Mrs. Gertrude. "Well, Mrs. Andrews is a widow, as I said. You will know that the first minute you see her, for she never appears without being dressed in character. She is very handsome, very demure, and I suppose an excellent teacher: every one says so. I know she has all those boys under her thumbs from the oldest to the youngest in a way that I shouldn't like if I were their mother. However, Father Van Alstine sustains her through thick and thin, and perhaps it is just as well that somebody should govern them."

"Does mother have good servants?" asked Marion, when she had a chance to speak. "Or don't she keep any?"

"Oh, yes, she has two excellent girls, and old James is always pottering about helping here and there. Between ourselves, though I don't want to hurt your feelings, mother is no great things as a housekeeper. She doesn't seem to notice things that would drive me half crazy. Now, though I am sick a great deal and have nobody that compares with Maggy, you don't see many cobwebs hanging about my house. But I hope you will be a great help to her, only you must not be surprised if you don't find things as you are used to seeing them. The boys have the run of the house, and such places as they make of their rooms and the sitting-room with bringing in all sorts of rubbish! To be sure Mrs. Andrews puts them up to it, and mother is nobody against her. Well, here is my station, so good-bye my dear. I see my husband is waiting for me. We shall be over to see you in a few days."

Marion had just time to catch a bow from a tall man in linen clothes before the train whirled on. They had half an hour's ride to the next station, and in that time Marion had rearranged most all her ideas in relation to the family she was going to see. Mr. Van Alstine was a hard, severe man ruling his family with a rod of iron, but governed by an artful, scheming widow. Amity was an interfering overbearing woman, always meddling and making trouble. The boys were rude, lawless, untaught savages, and her poor, gentle, weak-minded, mother was preyed upon and tyrannized over by all in turn. It did not trouble Marion that the different parts of this picture were as much out of drawing as if her father had painted it. She would be the good angel who should bring peace, and cast oil on the troubled waters. She would sustain and strengthen her poor mother, and supply all her deficiencies by her own ready tact; she would soften and conciliate the hard, severe father; in short, all was to be made right and sweet and good, and she, Marion McGregor, would do it all.

"We are coming to the station, miss," said the conductor presently. "You had better be all ready, for we only stop a minute, and it is an awkward place to get off. I hope your brother or some one will be on hand; the Falls isn't just the place where I should like to leave a young lady alone. Oh, yes, there he is; take care and step out on the right side."

It was only a minute or two before the train swept on and left Marion standing on a narrow platform, in company with her trunks and a tall, dark young gentleman in a gray business-suit, who had helped her out.

"You are late; I began to think something had happened," said the tall young man, not at all in the manner of a cub or a savage; "but I must introduce myself. I am Harry Van Alstine, and you, I suppose, are Marion. This is my brother Frank Van Alstine, and—hallo, old fellow, don't be so demonstrative." The last words were addressed to an immense dog of the mastiff persuasion, who, evidently thinking himself neglected, pushed his way into the group and thrust his dark brindled muzzle into Marion's hand.

"He wants to be introduced as well as the rest," said Frank. "This, sister Marion, is Dog Van Alstine, commonly known as Trump, and one of the most respectable and influential members of the family. And now, Harry, I think we had better be going, for we shall hardly be home before dark as it is."

"True," said Harry. "Marion, which trunk would you rather have first? We can take one on the carriage, and the other will come with the team."

Marion found her voice and pointed out the trunk. She was vexed at herself for feeling stiff, embarrassed and shy, when she meant to be affable and amiable. The heiress of the McGregors had been so, and had soon succeeded in setting the boys quite at their ease. But these boys were quite at their ease already, and they were very different from what she expected and from Mrs. Gertrude's description. Harry was fully as elegant a young gentleman as Doctor Prince, who was the model young man of Holford society, and she was obliged to own that Frank seemed as nice a boy as she had ever seen.

Heiress of McGregor.

Harry Van Alstine.

"Now, are you afraid to stand here a few minutes while Frank and I put on the trunk?" asked Harry. "And then we shall be ready to set out for home."

Marion stood and looked about her at the odd place in which she found herself.

In all my travelling, I have never seen a place which offered greater facilities for the shipwreck of travellers than the station at the Falls. The train draws up by a narrow platform. On one side is the great, rushing, solemn river, about six feet below the track, with no fence or guard, of any kind between. On the other a wide and deep canal, between which and the train is the narrow platform aforesaid. If you are absent-minded or near-sighted and step off the wrong side of the car, you step into the river. If you go a little too far on the right side, you walk straight into the canal.

A little way below a huge cliff rises apparently to heaven, feathered here and there, where its perpendicular face is broken by a little ledge, with shrubs and plant; wild vines and small evergreens. A little stream falls down the precipice into the river, thus giving a name to the place. The settlement consists of a shabby-looking store or grocery, a still worse-looking tavern and a few more or less forlorn-looking houses.

As Marion looked round her and noticed the appearance of the men who lounged about the place, she did not wonder that the conductor did not like the idea of leaving her there; her gold watch might have changed hands without much ceremony.

"Now, Marion, if you will come this way," said Harry, appearing at the end of the platform.

Marion did so, and soon found herself seated in a roomy, comfortable sort of family carriage; one of her trunks was fastened on a rack behind; the other was being loaded into a large wagon, drawn by four handsome gray mules, profusely decorated with bells and red fringe. Presently one of them opened his mouth, and gave vent to one of those unearthly sounds between a yell and a bray in which mules are used to express their emotions.

Marion started.

"What is that horrid noise?" she exclaimed.

"That is the melodious note of a mule," said Harry, laughing at her astonished face. "I suppose you don't have many of them in your part of the world; I remember hearing mother say she never saw one till she came to the valley."

"I am sure I never did," said Marion. "They are very pretty, I think. What cunning little feet they have!"

"Yes, we drive a pair in the carriage sometimes in dusty weather, because they kick up so much less dust than horses. Van Alstine & Overbeck have the finest mule teams in all the country," said Frank, with evident pride. "They keep six four-mule teams at work all the time."

"How gayly they are trimmed up!"

"That is the doing of the teamsters. They are very proud of their teams, and spend a deal for bells and fringe and silver-plated buckles to make them look pretty. All the mules live in our great barn, and it is curious that while neither father nor Mr. Overbeck dare go into the mule-barn, the children of the teamsters run in and out and attend to the mules quite fearlessly, and no harm comes to them. But come, Frank, start up a little. We are rather late now; mother will be worried, and I am sure Marion must be very tired."

"How is mother?" asked Marion, beginning to feel a little more at her ease.

"Pretty well, only tired. We have had a great deal of company this summer. When Mrs. Andrews is with us, she saves mother a great deal, but she has been away for three or four weeks."

"Of course we all help mother all that we can, but it isn't like having a girl in the family," said Frank, stopping his horses a moment as he reached the top of the long hill. "Don't you want to stand up and look back a little? There is such a fine view."

Marion did so, and beheld a beautiful prospect of river, mountains, and valley, all lighted to a golden glow by the setting sun. She had a keen eye for the picturesque, and admired the view to the young man's content.

"You are used to higher mountains than these," said Harry.

"Yes, but not such a river," said Marion. "How grand it is!"

"Isn't it?" said Frank, delighted. "Some day father will take you down and show you the Wyoming valley; and now if you will sit down, I will hurry up a little, for I want to get through the big woods before it is quite dark."

"Why," asked Marion, who had been rather hoping for an adventure ever since she had left home; "are they dangerous in any way?"

"Oh, no. There are no wolves nor bears, at least not in summer, and no highwaymen, but the road is none of the best in some places," answered Frank. "In fact it is decidedly bad, but you need not be alarmed if we jolt a little. The old ark is very substantial."

Accustomed to mountain roads, Marion did not find the roughness of the present track at all alarming. She was too tired to care about talking, and besides, to her own vexation, she felt rather shy of the tall, handsome driver. She had meant to be very gracious and conciliating to the awkward, overgrown boys she expected to meet, but somehow the awkwardness had been all on her own side. She began to feel that her family picture would need much retouching, if not painting entirely anew. But she did not care to undertake the task at present.

She leaned back in the carriage, tired and sleepy, but yet enjoying the sweetness of the forest air loaded with the scent of the evergreens, and listening to the loud woodland chorus in which crickets, katy-dids, and whip-poor-wills bore the principal part, while an owl occasionally volunteered a solo.

"What thick woods!" said she at last.

"We are just in the edge of the great woods," said Harry. "I will take you through them some day. But we are almost at home now. See, there is the top of our stack just over the hill, and the house is not far away."

"I don't see any stack," said Marion, looking out. "I see the top of what looks like an iron chimney."

"Yes, that is what he means, the smoke-stack of the factory. We shall soon be at the house, and then you will see what a lot of brothers you have," added Frank, laughingly. "Mother would let nobody come but Harry and me, because she said you were not used to boys, and would be frightened. Hallo, there's Hector looking out. Open the gate, will you, old fellow!"

Another black-haired boy, who was evidently on the watch, swung open the gate, and then ran into the house. Frank turned into a carriage road and drew up at the side door of a large house with brightly-lighted windows. The door was open and the hall seemed crowded with people; a tall, dark-bearded man came forward to help her out, and her mother stood on the verandah.

"Gently, boys, don't all speak at once! Let mother have the first chance," said Mr. Van Alstine, shaking Marion by the hand and kissing her cheek. "Marion, my girl, you are welcome home!"

In the course of five minutes Marion had shaken hands with what seemed to her agitated senses at least a dozen of boys, and was carried forward into a large and light dining-room handsomely furnished and with the table spread for supper. But she could eat hardly a mouthful of the dainty meal set before her. It seemed as if she had come away from all her old life into a new world. A sudden feeling of forlorn homesickness came over her, and, greatly to her own disgust, she burst into a fit of hysterical tears.

"You are so tired, poor child!" said her mother tenderly. "You shall go straight to bed and not see another soul to-night. Run up before, Hector; shut the blinds in sister's room and light the lamp. Come, Marie dear—they call you 'Marie,' I suppose. You shall go to bed and have a good long sleep, and you will be all right in the morning. See, this is your room, and I hope you will like it."

Marion tried to check her tears enough to murmur that it was very nice, but she really was tired out and hardly noticed anything save that the bed was delightfully soft and comfortable.

"Don't hurry in the morning; I will call you in time," said her mother, kissing her. "You will hear the whistle at five, but you need not move. Good-night, my love. I hope you will sleep well and be quite refreshed in the morning. Good-night."

CHAPTER XIII.

HEMLOCK VALLEY.

MARION slept late in the morning, and when she waked it was a minute or two before she knew where she was. The house was very still. She could hear birds singing and chickens cackling and crowing as if she were at home, but the room was a very different one from that she had called hers so long in the old McGregor house at Holford. It was much larger and higher, for one thing. There were two windows hung with pretty muslin curtains. The walls were covered with cheerful paper and the floor with fine checked India matting such as Marion had admired on Kitty Tremaine's floor in Holford. The furniture was of solid black walnut, mostly new, but with an old-fashioned bit here and there, such as a large mirror in a gilt frame, over the tall mantel-piece, and a pretty little workstand with brass trimmings. Altogether it was pretty as any room Marion had ever seen, and certainly as different as possible from the lodging which she had imagined herself occupying.

There was no need even of the scrap-bag and mats which she had already begun, for a very pretty bag hung by the side of the dressing-table and the blue and white china on the wash-stand was abundantly supplied with braided mats. Marion felt positively disappointed. She looked at her watch. It was past eight. She hastened to rise and dress herself. She found her dressing-table supplied with a new set of toilet articles, the nicest she had ever possessed.

"Money must be plenty, at any rate," she thought.

She explored the room still further, and discovered a large light closet in which was her trunk, and where she found also a great provision of hooks, shelves and drawers. Certainly she had never in her life been so sumptuously lodged. She dressed herself neatly in one of her new morning dresses, and went down-stairs, all the time more and more surprised at what she saw.

The house was evidently an old one, large and very solidly built. A second staircase led to an upper story. There was a large window in the end of the hall, on each side of which were book-cases filled with books. While Marion was hesitating which way to turn, an outside door opened and a fair, rather stout lady appeared, carrying a little covered dish in one hand and a basket in the other.

"Oh!" said the lady, after a minute's hesitation. "You are Marion, are you not?"

"Yes, ma'am," answered Marion, wondering who the lady could be.

"To be sure," said the stranger, setting down her basket and shaking her hand heartily.

"How do you do, dear?"

"Very well, thank you," answered Marion, wondering more and more.

"But I forget: you don't know who I am, of course," said the stranger smiling. "I am Amity—Amity Overbeck—your sister, you know. I am so glad you have come. Have you had your breakfast? But no, of course you haven't; you have just got up. Come this way, dear; I dare say your breakfast is all ready. Ma!" she called, opening a door and ushering Marion into a pretty sitting-room. "Ma, here's Marion."

"What liberties she takes!" thought Marion. "I wonder mother allows it, but I suppose she can't help it, poor thing."

Mrs. Van Alstine did not seem at all distressed by the liberty. She kissed Amity quite as heartily as she did Marion.

"I have been looking for you all the morning," said she. "Marie dear, you will want your breakfast, and Maggy has it all ready in the dining-room. Come this way; you will soon learn the geography of the house."

"Have you had your breakfast?" asked Marion, as she took her seat at the long, handsomely-appointed dining-table.

"Oh yes, hours ago. Tanners keep early hours you will find; quite as early as you have been used to at home. Amity, will you please speak to Maggy?"

Amity obeyed, setting down the covered dish she carried, which proved to contain some beautiful raspberries. A tempting breakfast was soon set before Marion, of which she was quite ready to partake. She drank her coffee and ate her dainty warm rolls, making her observations on the rooms and furniture while Amity took counsel with her mother over certain patterns and materials for children's wear, now and then including Marion in the conversation by some remark or question addressed to her.

"And where are the boys?" asked Amity. "Making the most of their holiday, I suppose, since school begins again on Monday. I shall not be sorry, for one. Where are they all?"

"Harry and Frank are down at the tannery helping their father. Bram is freezing the ice-cream just at this minute, and the little boys have gone over to the saw-mill on an errand. Do you think Helen will come to-day?"

"Unless something very unexpected happens. She hardly ever fails, you know. You have not seen Mrs. Andrews, Marion. I hope you will like her; everybody does."

"Not everybody exactly," said Mrs. Van Alstine smiling.

"Oh, well, everybody but Gertrude, and even she liked Helen at first. I suppose, by the way, we shall see her before long. Asahel's overseer said last week that she had set three different times already."

"And made Asahel go down to the station to meet her every time, I suppose."

"Gertrude has got home," said Marion. "She came down with me yesterday. The conductor introduced me to her when Mr. Randall left me, and we had quite a talk."

"Oh!" said Amity in rather a significant tone. "Then no doubt she told you all about us?"

"Amity, my dear!" said her mother in a tone of remonstrance.

Amity laughed.

"Never fear, mamma dear, I am as meek as a mouse. Well, there, I must go. Come over and see me, Marion. You will want to look about to-day, I suppose."

"I am afraid Marion will find it rather dull," observed her mother. "She is not used to living in the woods."

"And now what will you do till dinner time?" said her mother when Amity had gone. "I suppose you will like to put your things away. I have had James carry up your other trunk, and you will find plenty of places to bestow your clothes and so on. Shall I come up and sit with you while you are busy? I want to hear all the news from home."

"If you please, mother," said Marion. She was feeling every minute more strange, and, as Aunt Baby would have said, "like a cat in a strange garret." Everything was so utterly different from what she had expected.

"I dare say you will like to see the house," continued her mother; "it is a large one, but with our great family we live all over it. Here is another parlour, you see, but we use it more in winter than summer; and here is my room, which was built for a parlour too, but we do not need it, and I find it very convenient to have a bedroom down-stairs; and this is Aunt Eugenia's room; you must come in and be introduced to Aunt Eugenia; she is Mr. Van Alstine's aunt, and has always lived with him."

Mrs. Van Alstine opened a door, and introduced Marion into a pretty room, where sat an old lady dressed with exquisite neatness, and busily engaged in knitting. She turned her head as they entered, but did not move.

"Is that you, Eiley?" she asked, and then Marion saw that she was blind.

"Yes, aunty, and I have brought my daughter to see you. Go close to her, my dear. She will want to feel your face."

"Yes, my eyes are in the ends of my fingers," said the old lady pleasantly. Then after passing her hands over Marion's face, "She is like you in face; I hope she may be so in other ways. What has become of Hector and Rob?"

"They have gone over to the village for your snuff, aunty."

"They should not have done that," said Aunt Eugenia, though she was evidently much pleased.

"Oh, they had other errands enough; this is Saturday, you know. They will be home by dinner time. Poor old lady! She is lost without her snuff-box," said Mrs. Van Alstine as she closed the door.

"I should think you would try to break her of taking snuff," said Marion; "it is such a disagreeable bad habit."

"It is hardly worth while to try and break people of bad habits at eighty-eight," said Mrs. Van Alstine. "I don't think I shall try to reform Aunt Eugenia's till I have quite finished with my own, and by that time I think she will be done with snuff-boxes."

Marion fancied there was a tone of reproof in her mother's words, and dropped the subject. She was busily engaged all the morning in putting away her goods, and answering her mother's questions about home matters. Marion had no intention of telling any untruths, but she certainly gave her mother clearly to understand that she had never had justice done her at home either by her aunt or Miss Oliver.

"I hope you will like Mrs. Andrews—Cousin Helen, as we all call her," said Mrs. Van Alstine rather anxiously. "Our children and Amity's think her perfection, and the boys certainly get on very well. Harry says Abram and Frank know as much Latin now as he did when he entered college."

"Is Harry in college?" asked Marion, surprised.

"Yes; he entered on the Sophomore year at Princeton, and is now a senior. He is only at home for his vacation, and expects to graduate next commencement if all goes well."

"I am glad the boys are learning Latin, because I shall be able to help them with their lessons," said Marion, remembering her part of the model elder sister. "What do they mean to make of themselves?"

"That is hardly decided yet," said her mother, smiling; "both Bram and Frank have a turn for natural science, and Frank is a good botanist already. They may both study medicine, or perhaps take to some professorship. Hector says he means to be a tanner and help father, and Rob will be whatever Hector is; they seem to have but one mind between them."

"I thought Asahel was in business with father," said Marion.

"He is in a fashion—that is, father owns the tannery which Asahel is running over at the Bottom. He used to be concerned in this one," said Mrs. Van Alstine, with a little sigh; "and when he was married, father built him a very pretty little house. But Gerty was not contented here, and on the whole it was thought better to make another arrangement, so he went over to Rock Bottom, where there is quite a village. I was sorry, for father misses Asahel very much. You know—or I suppose you don't know—that tanning is a business that runs very much in families. You will find that the eldest son of a tanner is almost always a tanner himself, and joins his father in business. But there is the twelve o'clock bell, and I must go down and see that Maggy is ready. She is apt to be a little unpunctual, unless somebody hurries her at the last. The bell will ring when dinner is ready, and then you will see the family all together, except Aunt Eugenia. She likes to dine in her own room."

The bell rang before Marion had finished brushing her hair and washing her hands. She hurried down and found the whole family assembled round the table, and her father already beginning to carve the mountain of roast beef before him. Her mother had reserved a chair at her right hand, and Marion stepped into it, vexed at herself as usual, and wondering what they would think of her being so late.

"Good-morning, my girl," said Mr. Van Alstine, kindly; "I hope you are quite rested. You know all your brothers by this time, I suppose?"

"I don't believe she does," said Frank. "Well, then, this tall fellow at mother's left hand is Harry, the collegian, and I am Frank, at your service."

"Professor of roots and yarbs at the University of the Cannibal Islands," said one of the boys.

"Exactly," returned Frank, in perfect good-humour; "and this is Abraham, whom the unlettered and vulgar call Abe, but his family in deference to his feelings name him Abraham, and sometimes Bram; and there is Hector McGregor, and Robert Campbell, commonly called Rob Roy, for what reason I leave you to guess."

"And now that you have finished your introductions, my son, pass your sister's plate and help her to some potatoes," said his mother. "Rob, get Marion a napkin. I see Maggy has forgotten it."

"Where's Sally?" asked Rob, as he brought the napkin.

"She has gone over to the saw-mill to spend the day with her sister, who is sick."

The dinner proceeded with abundance of talking and laughing among the boys, but nothing that could be called rudeness. The boys were particularly attentive to her mother, especially Harry, who seemed to anticipate her every want. Certainly, there was nothing resembling the bear-garden Marion had pictured to herself. The appointments of the table were far more elegant than anything she had ever been accustomed to, and she was provoked at herself for being embarrassed with her large silver fork and for feeling shy before her stepfather.

She could not but own, as she looked around, that they were a handsome family. Mr. Van Alstine was a man of rather more than middle age, with black curling hair streaked with gray, hazel eyes, with a spark of red fire in them, as so often happens with hazel eyes, and a composed, somewhat commanding, but very pleasant manner. The elder boys were all like him, with black curls and dark eyes, and well-tanned faces; Robert alone had red hair and blue eyes—a real McGregor, Marion thought as she looked at him. He was ten years old, and Harry, the eldest, about twenty.

"Who is going over to the village to meet Cousin Helen?" asked Mr. Van Alstine, when dinner was nearly over. "Now, don't all speak at once."

"I think Bram and the Scotchman had better go to-day," said Harry; "Frank and I went yesterday."

"Why don't Mr. Overbeck go?" asked Mrs. Van Alstine. "I thought he would take Amity over."

"He can't be spared," said her husband; "we must work all the afternoon to get the hides ready by Monday."

"Don't you want Frank and me?" asked Harry.

"Of course I shall be glad of your help, but I don't want you to spend your vacation in the factory, my boy. I dare say you and the doctor want to be off bug-hunting."

"Oh, the bugs can wait."

"I hope you like insects, Marion," said Abraham.

"I don't think I do," answered Marion. "I am rather afraid of them."

"And of snakes? Don't say you are afraid of snakes, now."

"I am very much afraid of them," said Marion. "I hope they don't grow here."

"Grow!" said Abraham, in a tone of commiseration. "Alas for you! They swarm here. And Frank has a passion for them. He brings in choice specimens alive and confines them in his room by dozens, and then they creep out and wander about the house, and disport themselves fiendishly in the halls and on the stairs."

"Don't you believe him, Marion; it was only one poor, unlucky black snake, and I did not bring him in, either. It was the cat, I suppose; or perhaps he crawled in himself, but Bram always lays him to me."

"You'll see," said Bram.

"And you'll see when I get you alone, old fellow," said Frank, threateningly. "Just wait till I catch you down-stairs."

"Yes, I expect my distracted family will find my mangled body in a pit some time, all tanned into leather. It is a fate to which I have always been looking forward."

"Because your guilty conscience tells you, you deserve it. Come, Harry, let's go down and trim hides, and leave him to plunge into the wild dissipations of the town and spend all his pocket-money in peppermint drops. That's the magnet that draws him over to Ivanhoe. It isn't Cousin Helen; it's the candy-shop. Please excuse us, mother."

"Mother must excuse all of us if she pleases; for if the boys are going over for Helen, there is no time to lose. There! Be off, youngsters, and don't run away with the horses nor let them run away with you."

"Follow, follow, clansmen all," sang Abram as he left the room. "Come along, Scotchmen."

"Marion looks bewildered," said Mr. Van Alstine as he stopped a moment after the boys were gone. "She isn't used to the company of such 'a raft of boys,' as poor Gerty calls them."

"She will soon get used to them," said Mrs. Van Alstine. "They are good boys, though I say it that shouldn't."

"Mother means to make the best of it," thought Marion.

The afternoon brought Amity again, with two of her children—a tall girl just coming to the awkward and opinionated age of fourteen and a solemn little boy of five, who betook himself to Aunt Eugenia for a story, while Bessy began to put Marion through a catechism as to her school, her studies, and her accomplishments, ending with,—

"Did you learn music?"

"No," answered Marion. "We had no piano. I believe I am to begin now."

"Oh, you are a great deal too old to begin now, I should say," remarked Bessy. "You know people who want to play well should begin before their hands are formed. I would keep on with drawing if I were you. Cousin Helen draws beautifully."

"And do you play well?" asked Marion, trying to turn the fire of questions on her adversary.

"Tolerably, considering," was the cool reply. "I can't play like Harry or Stannie, of course, but perhaps I shall. Stannie is going abroad some day to finish her musical education—to Stuttgart or some of those places, you know, where the advantages are so superior."

Marion did not know anything about it, but she would not have said so for a good deal. She could not even remember at the moment where Stuttgart was.

"And who is Stannie?" she asked, again.

"Oh, she's Cousin Helen's daughter, Stanley Andrews. There wasn't any boy, you see, and so she was named for her father. She is at school in Round Spring, but she always comes here for her vacation. Oh, you'll like Stannie. I assure you I'm quite jealous, the boys think so much of her."

"Bessy, my dear, don't you think you are talking rather more than your share?" asked her mother, smilingly. Such a hint would have sent Marion into the sulks for the whole evening, but Bessy only laughed, blushed a little, and put her finger on her lip.

"Suppose, Bessy and Marion, you put on your hats and go out for a little walk," said Mrs. Van Alstine. "The sun is low and it is very pleasant."

"Oh yes, come, Marion, and we'll go and meet the carriage," said Bessie.

Marion would have liked to excuse herself, but she did not know how. She put on her hat, and the two walked up the road to the top of the hill.

"Now you can see all the village," said Bessie; "a grand place, isn't it?"

"I don't see much village," said Marion. "What is that long, low building with the tall chimney?"

"Oh, that's the factory—the tannery, you know. Grandpa will want to take you over it some day; he always does."

"It must be a horrid dirty place."

"Not a bit. Oh, the beam-house is pretty dirty, of course, and it isn't exactly fragrant, you know. But tanning is very healthy work, after all, and particularly good for consumption, they say. The rest is all clean enough. And that largest house is our house, and the other, with green blinds, is Mr. Breck's, the foreman, and the others are where the hands live. And that great barn over the creek is the mule-barn, and that one across the road is the horse-barn, and there is the store and the blacksmith's and the shoemaker's, and that's all, I believe."

"You have left out the nicest of all," said Marion—"that pretty white building with the green blinds and the little bell. What is that?"

"That? Oh yes, that is our little chapel," said Bessie, with a change of tone. "Isn't it pretty? But we mean to have a nicer one some day, and in a better situation, too. Van Alstine & Overbeck mean to build a nice little stone church up on the hill by our house."

"A chapel! And do you have a minister?" asked Marion.

"Yes, every other Sunday; and when he isn't here, grandfather or father conducts the services. Sometimes Harry does when he is at home. You'll see to-morrow."

"And do you have a Sunday school?"

"Of course," answered Bessy, in a surprised tone. "Don't you? I thought everybody had Sunday schools."

"Everybody don't, by a great deal," said Marion, a good deal offended. "We do, of course, but I didn't expect to find one out here in the woods."

"Oh, we are not owls, though we do live in the woods," said Bessy, laughing, in perfect good-nature. "I suppose you thought you were coming among a set of savages, didn't you? See, there comes the carriage and Cousin Helen, but not Stannie. Now, that is too bad. I suppose her grandmother has kept her again."

Bram, who was driving, pulled up and invited the girls to get into the carriage.

Marion was not sorry to accept the invitation, for she still felt tired with her journey, and she was very curious to see the cousin Helen of whom she had heard so much. Mrs. Andrews was a very pretty woman, dressed, as Gerty had described her, in deep widow's mourning, but by no means woebegone or doleful in her expression; on the contrary, she was very bright and cheerful, and as Marion could not but allow very attractive in manner and expression.

"Oh, Cousin Helen, where is Stannie?" exclaimed Bessy.

"Stannie is in Hobartstown with her grandmother, and will be here next week, as I have already stated as many as seven times," replied Mrs. Andrews. "I think I shall delegate Bram to answer the question henceforth, for I am tired of it. How many feet have you grown since I went away, Betsy?"

"Betsy's mother puts a flatiron on her head for three hours every day," said Bram.

"Now, Bram, don't," said Bessy, pathetically; "what will Marion think of us?"

And so, amid much laughter and good-natured "chaff," the ride was concluded.

Marion went to bed at night with her head in a whirl and her ideas thoroughly disorganized.

"Who would have thought everything would have turned out so different?" she said to herself as she got ready for bed. She could not help feeling a little provoked. Not only did they have family prayers every morning and evening, but they had actually a church and Sunday school.

"Of course; don't you?" that impertinent little Bessy had said.

What had become of her fine castle in the air about influencing her father to get up a Sunday school which was to be held in a barn or shed till she could still further influence him to build a small log school-house? Here was a Sunday school already organized, and nobody had even asked her to take a class.

On the contrary, Bessy had said carelessly, "I suppose you will be in Cousin Helen's Bible class, Marion."

She began to feel a positive dislike to Bessy. Why did not Mrs. Overbeck teach her children to call her, Marion, by the proper title of aunt? She decided to assert herself on this point, as soon as possible. She had come to Hemlock Valley determined to be very gracious, considerate, and condescending, and she could not make up her mind to yield her position without an effort; and thinking over various plans for asserting her dignity, she fell asleep.

CHAPTER XIV.

LIFE IN THE WOODS.

SIX weeks had passed since the date of our last chapter. The woods around Hemlock Valley were beginning to put on here and there a dash of red or a shade of brown, and the autumn-blossoming flowers in the gardens were in all their glory; the boys were making daily excursions to the woods to bring home ferns and mosses for the parlour windows. All the "Agricultural Transactions," "Patent-office Reports," and other books of that nature were filled with gay autumn leaves in process of pressing (the only use, by the way, that I ever found for such volumes), and Mrs. Andrews complained pathetically that she could not open an atlas or a dictionary without being covered by a shower of falling foliage.

Marion McGregor was leaning on the gate in front of the house, looking over the fields toward the pasture, and feeling very disconsolate. She was more utterly discontented and unhappy than she had ever been even at Holford, and that was saying a great deal.

We have seen how baseless were all the castles in the air she had built on Hemlock Valley. Instead of a rude, irreligious, ill-bred household, she had found a polite, well-ordered family, the older children kind and helpful to their parents and each other, the younger well governed and affectionate, and all perfectly obedient and respectful—far more so, indeed, than she had ever learned to be.

She had never forgotten—I may say she had never forgiven—her first lesson on that point after her arrival. Some question was being eagerly discussed at the breakfast-table, and Mrs. Van Alstine had pronounced an opinion, to which Marion replied in a tone of contempt:

"Nonsense, mother! How can you say so? That has nothing to do with the matter. You don't know anything about it."

Marion had not intended to show any special disrespect to her mother, of which, to do her justice, she was incapable. She had spoken to Aunt Baby in the same way dozens of times, and unless grandfather happened to hear, nobody took any notice. But now there was a dead silence. Six pair of indignant dark eyes were turned on her at once, and after a moment, Mr. Van Alstine said gravely, but in a tone that carried more weight than a great many scoldings,—

"Marion, my girl, that is not the way to speak to your mother. Don't ever let me hear such a thing again."

Marion was overwhelmed with shame and confusion, but as usual the shame and confusion were not directed so much to the fault as to the impression it had made on others. What would they think of her? How they would look down on her! They would think she had no breeding at all. She burst into tears, rose, and left the table, but nobody came to call her back or took any notice of her till school time.

Then Mrs. Andrews had come to find her.

"I am not coming down," sobbed Marion.

"Nonsense, my dear!" said Mrs. Andrews, kindly but decidedly. "That would be very silly. There is no use in wasting the whole day because you have begun it badly. The way to manifest repentance is not by crying over your fault, but by owning it and trying to do better."

"I don't think I did anything so very dreadful," said Marion, as usual in arms for her own defence.

"Do you remember how angry you were the other day because Bessy told you she didn't want you interfering with her Latin lessons?" said Mrs. Andrews.

"Well, Bessy was very impertinent to me, and she always is impertinent. She ought to remember that I am her aunt and a great deal older than she."

"Well, which demands most respect, an aunt or a mother? However, there is no time to argue the point. I shall expect you in the school-room in ten minutes."

Marion came down in the required time, but she was very sulky, and went to her own room again the moment school was over. She never spoke a word at the dinner-table, but nobody seemed to notice her silence, and she felt that her offended dignity was all thrown away.

Marion had been disappointed in every way. Idle as she had been in school for the last two years, she had somehow imagined that she should be very much in advance of her brothers, and she had made the most amiable plans for helping them in their studies. But, alas! even little Rob and Hector were better at parsing English than herself. Bram criticised her false quantities in Latin without mercy, and even Mrs. Andrews smiled at some of her translations. Instead of being prepared to help her brothers, she was obliged to strain every nerve in the endeavour to keep up with them. The idle and careless habits of study in which she had lately indulged did not help her at all. It was very mortifying.

Marion had not forgotten her resolution to help her mother in housekeeping, but she was as unfortunate in this as in other directions. She had begun by putting the boys' rooms in order, beginning with Frank's and Abram's, where she had found stored away a great quantity of trash, as she called it. There was a long set of shelves, evidently of domestic manufacture, filled with labelled stones and specimens of various kinds, and all, it must be acknowledged, somewhat dusty, while in a large basket in one corner were piled a quantity of short sticks of wood.

"How silly of Frank to keep this wood up here, when he has no stove!" thought Marion.

She took down all the contents of the shelves, dusted them, and restored them in the order which seemed to her best, and then, piling the wood in the basket, she carried it down and threw it into the kitchen wood-box. She was busy in the school-room not long afterward, when Frank came down, followed by Bram.

"Marion, have you been in my room?" he asked, in measured tones, as if determined not to speak sharply, come what might.

"Yes," answered Marion, all unconscious of the mischief she had done, and as she thought perceiving an opening for one of those moral lessons which seemed likely to be wasted by keeping. "I have put it all in nice order, and I hope you will keep it so. There can be no excuse for such disorder even in a boy. You certainly don't want a great basket of wood in your room this time of year."

"Oh!" said Frank, preserving his enforced composure. "And what have you done with this basket of wood that I didn't want, if I may venture to ask?"

"I took it down and put it in the kitchen, wood-box, where it ought to be," answered Marion. "Why should you speak so, Frank? I don't think that is very kind, after I have just taken so much pains for you."

"Then another time, I wish you would let my room alone," exclaimed Frank, his temper giving way at last. "Pains, indeed! I wish you had been a hundred miles off before you touched it. I should think any idiot would have known better."

"Frank, old boy!" said Bram, warningly.

"Well, I do," said Frank. "It is too bad! After all the pains I had taken, to go and throw away—" Frank's voice broke down, and he evidently had much to do not to burst out crying.

"Frank, my son, what is the matter?" said his mother, entering the room and looking with surprise to see Frank's emotion and Marion's face of anger. "I hope you haven't been getting in a passion again."

Frank tried to speak, but failed and rushed out of the room.

"What is the matter?" said Mrs. Van Alstine, again.

"There is nothing the matter, only Frank has been making a fuss about nothing," said Marion, in her most dignified manner; "but I suppose he will be sustained in it, of course."

"There is a good deal the matter, I think," said Bram, more moved than was at all usual, for he had the most placid temper in the family. "Marion has been putting our room in order, and she has jumbled all our geological specimens together and thrown Frank's native woods into the kitchen wood-box."

"What, not the collection of native woods he has been making so long?" said Mrs. Van Alstine. "Not that he was making for Professor G. of the woods of Pennsylvania? Oh, Marion!"

"Yes, mamma, she has. Frank has had them all seasoned up in the loft at the factory. We have been busy ever so long planing and polishing one side, so as to show the grain when manufactured, and yesterday we brought them all up-stairs to arrange and put the labels on."

"Poor Frank! No wonder he is vexed," said her mother. "He has been a year making that collection, and it was really very complete and valuable. Marion, my dear, don't you know I told you not to meddle with the boys' things?"

"I should like to know how I was to put their rooms in order without meddling," said Marion, injured, as usual.

"But you were not asked to put them in order, only to make the beds and lay clean cloths on the bureaus and stands. I hope you have not been going on so in Harry's room?"

"Harry's room was not in such a state. I only piled up his books and papers in some kind of order."

"And so lost all the references he has been finding for his essay this week past," said Abram. "Well, I declare, sis, you have made a good morning's work."

"It isn't quite so bad as it might be, after all," said Frank, reappearing with a brighter face. "Maggy had sense enough to see that so many pieces of wood, all the same size and all carefully polished on one side, could not be common kindling wood. The dear old soul said she had put two or three in the stove 'afore she noticed.' But when she came to look, she saw that, she said, 'They was some of Mr. Frank's curiosities and nonsense,' and she carefully laid them all on one side. She shall have the nicest calico dress I can find in Ivanhoe."

"Maggy is a sensible, careful woman," said his mother, looking very much relieved. "I am glad your collection is saved, Frank, and I am sure you won't bear malice to poor Marie."

"Poor Marie!" Marion's proud heart swelled. Had it come to that?

"Of course not," said Frank. "Never mind, Marie; what could one expect but that MeGregors should make raids? We shall have to give you black mail, as people used to give to your forbear, Rob Roy. Come, Bram, let's go and put the stones in order."

Marion had read "Rob Roy," but she was too angry to enjoy the joke, even if it had not been against herself. The moment the boys were gone she burst forth:

"Well, mother, I must say I think you are rather too bad to take the part of those rude boys against me."

"Why not? They were right and you were wrong. I told you specially what I wanted of you; and if you had obeyed, it would have been all right."

"It was just so about Rob's going fishing," continued Marion. "I told him he should not go because it looked likely to rain, and you let him go directly. I don't see how I am to manage at all if you do so; and Cousin Helen is just as bad. If I say a word to the little boys or to Betsy or Eiley in the school-room, all the thanks I get is, 'Marion, don't interfere, if you please,' and of course I can't influence them in the least. I came here to be useful and to help you," said Marion, with pathetic dignity; "but if that is the way it is always going to be, I don't see how I can do anything."

"If you want to help people acceptably, you must do it in their way, and not in yours," said her mother. "It is anything but a help to have you contradict my directions or interfere with the other children. You see what a great misfortune nearly happened this morning simply because you did not obey directions. Only for Maggy's having more observation and discretion than yourself, the whole of Frank's valuable collection would have been destroyed."

"Oh, very well!" said Marion, actually trembling with anger. "If Maggy is to be put over my head as well as the children, I think it is time I went away. I should like to go directly, if you please. I see plainly that I am not wanted here."

"You will never be wanted anywhere, Marion, unless you learn a little Christian humility," said her mother, more severely than usual. "You are setting a very bad example to Bessy and the other children. Cousin Helen has complained of you more than once for meddling and interfering. Unless you try to do better, I shall have to speak to your father. I can't think what Barbara was about to spoil you so."

Marion burst into tears.

"There is no use in crying," said her mother, with some sharpness, for she was not well and very busy. "Try to do better another time, that is all."

Marion retreated to her own room to go though her usual fit of crying, and then of mortification and vain regret. But, as usual, her regret was not so much that she had done wrong, as that others would think her wrong, and, above all, that they would think her silly. It was not "How could I be so obstinate and self-conceited as not to follow mother's directions?" but "How silly I was not to see that those were not common sticks of firewood! Even Maggy, that stupid old Irish woman, knew better. And I need not have been so angry and have spoken so to mother. What will they all think of me? Oh dear. There never was anybody pursued by such an evil fate as I am. I meant to be so amiable and set such a good example, and now I have lost all chance of ever influencing those boys."

"Oh, come, sis, never mind any more about the scientific woodpile," said Frank, an hour or two afterward, finding Marion leaning on the verandah railing with a very doleful face. "I am sorry I was so sharp; but you must admit it was rather aggravating to have my fine collection that I had been making so long tumbled into the kitchen wood-box. Come, don't mind anything about it. Don't you want to go up the Cedar Run with us? We are going after ground-pine and ferns to dress up Stannie's room. You know she is coming to-morrow. You have never seen the Cedar Run. There is a dear little waterfall on it; and when Stannie comes, we mean to have a tea-party up there. Come!"

"I'm sure you are very good, Frank," said Marion, her ill-humour fairly overcome by his good-nature.

"Fiddle!" said Frank, boy-fashion. "What is the use of laying up things? Come, put on your oldest and shortest dress, for we are going 'cross lots, and you'll see sights in the way of climbing fences, I can tell you."

And so this matter seemed happily disposed of, but Marion still felt very unhappy. She had made herself laughed at, she had shown less sense than Maggy. The boys would despise her, and her mother would think she was not a Christian.

I once read in a Roman Catholic book of devotion a direction which has always seemed to me full of wisdom:

"When you are convicted of a fault, acknowledge it openly and frankly, repent of it heartily, and then put it out of your mind entirely."

Marion did none of these things. She would not confess frankly even to herself that she had done wrong in disobeying her mother.

"I suppose I ought to have done as she told me, but then she need not treat me as a child." And this "but then" spoiled the admission. Neither was her repentance hearty; and so far from putting it out of her mind, she kept turning it over and over and imagining a scene in which she was the aggrieved party and her mother and brothers were obliged to make acknowledgments to her.

Stanley Andrews came, and proved to be a pleasant fresh, unaffected girl, ready to please and be pleased, throwing herself into the family life at Hemlock Valley as if she belonged to it, and making it the brighter and pleasanter for her presence. Bessy clung to her like a burr.

Bessy and Marion had not got on well together. She had somewhat resented and a good deal laughed at Marion's attempt to exact the respect due to her age and position.

"You are nobody but a school-girl like myself, and I am sure you don't know so much more than I do," said the uncompromising young woman. "Of course I'll call you 'aunty' if you want me to, but I think it is ridiculous, when we are so nearly of an age. Bram and Frank are six months older than you, so I suppose I ought to call them 'uncles.' I say, 'Uncle Bram'!"

"Uncle!" said Bram. "How long since, Betsy?"

"Well, Marion says she is 'Aunt Marion,' so I suppose what is sauce for the 'aunt' is sauce for the 'uncle,' isn't it?" asked Bessy, demurely.

"There is no danger of any want of sauce where you are," said Bram. "Never mind, Marion; we all know Betsy."

But Marion did mind very much—so much that she carried the matter to her mother.

"I don't think I would mind, dear," said poor Eiley, who began to wish that she had left Marion where she was. "You see the children have come along so near together they have been more like brothers and sisters than anything else. It may not have been the best way, but we can't help it now, and I don't think I would try."

Stanley was a year older than Marion. She was in the Senior class at Round Springs, and would graduate in another year, but she did not stand on her dignity at all. She walked and rode, gathered specimens with the older boys, talked metaphysics and philosophy with Harry, music with Bessy, and dolls with little Eileen Overbeck with equal willingness and apparently equal pleasure. Her mother would not allow her to do any lessons in vacation-time except her music, and Stanley took possession of the piano in school-hours, working hard at exercises and studies of all sorts, and now and then disporting herself in a Strauss waltz or a song. She was fully prepared to find a pleasant companion in Marion, and met her with simple cordiality.

Marion wished to respond, but she was thinking of herself and the impression she was likely to make, and consequently she was at once awkward and condescending.

"Aunt Eugenia doesn't seem as well as usual, I think," remarked Stanley at dinner one day. "She seems nervous and more like being irritable than I have ever seen her. She didn't even care about the snuff that I brought her."

"I have noticed a change for several days," said Mrs. Van Alstine. "She is uneasy all the time, as if she missed something, and she doesn't have a nap in the afternoon, as she used to."

"That won't do," said Mr. Van Alstine. "We must have the doctor over. I'll go in and see her after dinner."

Mr. Van Alstine was as good as his word, but Aunt Eugenia would not hear of the doctor.

"It is nothing, Ezra, only—Well, the fact is, I suppose, I miss my snuff."

"Your snuff!" said her nephew. "And how happens it that you haven't any snuff? The Scotchman will go after some directly."

"No, thank you, Ezra. The truth is, Marion has said so much about its being a bad habit and making me so disagreeable, and that it was inconsistent in a Christian to use tobacco, that I thought I would try to do without it."

The red spark shot from Mr. Van Alstine's eyes, and then he laughed:

"If ever I saw such a girl! I believe she wouldn't hesitate to regulate the solar system if she could only get her hand on the crank. She was talking to Overbeck the other day on the wickedness of selling the men tobacco at the store. But this won't do, Aunt Eugenia. I don't say I think snuff-taking a good habit, and I wouldn't advise young people to use tobacco in any shape, but I don't think eighty-eight is a good time to begin to leave it off, especially when one is blind into the bargain."

"I don't suppose I should have begun it if I hadn't always been blind," said Aunt Eugenia, "though the best and the most elegant people took snuff when I was young."

"To be sure; my mother always did. Come, now, let me fill your snuff-box and make you comfortable."

"But don't find fault with Marion," said the kind-hearted old lady, accepting the long used and sorely missed stimulant. "Marion naturally doesn't know what it is to have no eyes. She means well, I am sure, and she is very kind in reading to me. She is only a little conceited, and time will cure that."

"More than a little, I am afraid," said Mr. Van Alstine. "Never fear, auntie; I shall not be hard upon her, but I have seen for some time that Marion needs taking down a little. She has sense enough, if she did not think she had more than any one else in the world."

Nevertheless, Marion thought Mr. Van Alstine was very hard on her.

"See here, my girl, I want to tell you something," said he as he found her sitting on the verandah with a book. "Did you ever hear how it was that Mr. Abbott Lawrence made his great fortune?"

"No, sir," answered Marion, all unsuspicious.

"Well, I'll tell you: it was by minding his own business. I'm afraid you won't make one in the same way unless you begin pretty soon. I am very glad to have you do all you can for auntie, but don't meddle with her snuff-box again."

This was all he said, but it was enough to make Marion abandon her book and betake herself to melancholy musings leaning over the gate. The prospect was not a very lively one. There was nothing to see but the horse-barn across the road, where old James was impartially dividing a piece of meat among his army of cats; the mule-pasture with the road winding through it which led to the saw-mill; and beyond, unlimited woods clothing the sides of the valley. A mule-wagon heavily loaded with bark was coming up the road, another load was being weighed on the scales opposite the store, and Mr. Overbeck, in his shirt-sleeves, was attending to the process. There was nobody else in sight. Marion leaned on the gate and looked up and down the street.

"Oh dear!" she sighed. "I used to think it was stupid and tiresome at grandfather's, but it is ten times worse here. I might have known better than to interfere with Aunt Eugenia's snuff-box. Of course, with such an old lady, how ridiculous it was! Oh dear! I thought I was going to have so much influence here and do so much good, and now I wish I had not come. I never can make them respect me after this, and there is no use in trying. There's Stanley, now. I don't believe she cares one bit about having an influence or setting an example, and she can do just what she pleases. She has broken Bessy of saying 'Hallo!' and Eiley of drawling and saying 'Yas-m,' and the boys think there is nobody like her. I believe it is because she has been to boarding-school so much. I wish I could go, but I never can have half a chance."

She looked up as she spoke, and saw Gertrude Van Alstine's carriage coming over the hill.

CHAPTER XV.

MRS. GERTRUDE.

GERTRUDE had not been at the valley for a visit since Marion's arrival, notwithstanding her professed intention to visit her immediately. There had been talk of an expedition to Rock Bottom, but it had never come to anything.

Marion had taken a fancy to Gerty on the only occasion of their meeting, and was very glad to see her again. She went into the house to announce the arrival.

The three elder ladies were sitting together in council over some clothes for an unprovided twin among the factory-hands, and Stanley and Bessy were practicing a tremendously classical and scientific duet on the piano, Bessy having arrived at the particular stage of her musical education when she looked upon tunes with great contempt.

"Gerty is coming, mother," said Marion. "I saw the carriage coming over the hill."

The three ladies looked at each other, and Marion thought there was a little dismay in their glances.

"What does she want this time?" said irrepressible Bessy.

"To see her friends, no doubt," replied her mother, with a look which Bessy well understood as a hint that she was to say no more. It was curious to see how entirely the sharp, bright, and somewhat forward girl was "held in hand" by her good-humoured, gentle mother.

"Can I help you, mother?" said Amity, turning to Mrs. Van Alstine.

"No, thank you. I believe everything is in order in the north room. You might just step up and see if you don't mind, Stannie."

It struck Marion that Gertrude's arrival produced more commotion than was to be expected from an event apparently so simple in its character. Her mother was actually nervous, Stanley looked discomposed and uneasy, and even placid Amity was evidently somewhat disturbed. The whole party came to the door to receive the visitor, who now drove up.

"You are a great stranger," said Mrs. Van Alstine when the first greetings were past.

"Yes, I am very much confined," answered Gerty, with an air of fatigued resignation. "We have so much company. There is hardly a day that somebody does not come to dinner. That is the beauty of being a tanner's wife. But I suppose there is no help for it now. I think you are not looking very well, either, mother. I'm sure you ought not to be overburdened, with so many to help you. I see Stanley is here for her vacation, as usual."

"Certainly," answered Mrs. Van Alstine, promptly; "where should she spend it but with her mother? I am sure she is a great comfort."

"Oh, of course! I am glad you should have her, I am sure. Some people might think it rather—However, of course, it is no concern of mine. She is very pretty, certainly."

"Won't you go up-stairs and take your things off?" said Mrs. Van Alstine. "You mean to stay now you have come, do you not? Where is Asahel?"

"Oh, he went on down to the factory to see father about some business. I think I will go up-stairs and rest a little. It is a very tiresome ride, all up and down hill so. What a pretty black silk that is, Amity! Your old one made over, I suppose?"

"No; this is a new one my husband gave me this summer."

"What, another new dress!" said Gerty, in a tone of surprise. "Well, if I ever!"

Amity smiled, but made no reply. Bessy looked indignant; and when Gerty disappeared, her indignation burst forth:

"Well, I do say—"

"Hush, Bessy!" said her mother.

"As if it was any of her business!"

"Bessy, my dear!"

"And about Stanley, too!"

"Bessy, my love! You had better finish your lesson."

"Well, I will, mamma dear. And I won't say it out if it chokes me. Come, Stannie, let's finish our duet, and then she'll say, 'Is that piano always going'?"

"What's the matter?" asked Stanley, who had just come back.

"Never mind; it's only Gerty. Come, I must go at something to ease my mind."

Asahel came up to tea with his father, and Mrs. Gerty came down refreshed with her nap, looking as pretty as possible and very good-natured and agreeable. Marion thought Asahel had a worn, harassed look, and her father's black brows were rather nearer together than common, but he was, as usual, kind and pleasant to every one.

"Henry has gone back to college, I suppose?" said Gertrude.

"Not yet," answered Mr. Van Alstine. "It is his Senior year, you know, and he has some privileges accordingly. He and the boys have gone over to Pocono after some wonderful vegetable or other that Frank has got word of, and won't be home till to-morrow."

"Really! He makes the most of his holidays. And what is he going to do with himself after he leaves college?"

"He means to study for the ministry, I believe."

"What, Henry! Well, I declare! I should never have thought of that. Do you hear, Asahel? Henry is going to be a minister."

"Well, why not?" said Asahel. "I think he will make a very good one. He was always a sober old fellow."

"Well, I must say I am surprised. I met one of Henry's college friends up at B—, and from what he told me, I should have thought the ministry was about the last thing. However, I suppose all boys must sow their wild oats, whether they are to be ministers or not. I am sorry he is away. I have hardly seen him."

"He has been over at the Bottom several times, but I think you were away every time," said Mrs. Van Alstine. "How did you find your cousins?"

Mrs. Gertrude was diverted from family matters for the time to enlarge upon her city visit and relations. She had had a very nice time, it appeared, and had been a person of great consequence.

After supper she joined Marion and Stanley, who were standing on the verandah watching the sunset.

"What are you doing out here?" she asked.

"Listening to the owls," answered Stanley. "'The moping owl does to the moon complain.' The owl is one of our principal singing-birds in Hemlock Valley."

"Doleful, dismal, stupid old hole!" said Gerty. "Don't you think so?"

"Not I, indeed," said Stanley; "I love it dearly, owls and all."

"Of course you do," said Gerty, laughing significantly; "no need to tell us that, Miss Stanley. I was asking Marion, who has not quite the same reasons for liking it that you have."

"I like it very well," said Marion. "I think the valley is beautiful; and I am sure I have as many reasons for liking it as Stanley, if it comes to that. I have as many friends as she has."

Marion spoke with some little warmth. However hardly she might think of her own family, she did not like to have any one else speak ill of them.

"Oh, of course, only not quite. But how any one can like such a hole in the woods as this! You don't have any society."

"Oh yes, we have plenty of company; besides that, we make up a tolerably sized society of our own," said Stanley, as if determined not to be vexed.

"Stanley, my dear, have you a shawl on?" called her mother from within.

"I am coming in, mother," answered Stanley. "Will you come, Marie?"

"Marie and I are going to take a little walk together," said Gerty. "I wish you would bring me a hood or something, Stanley."

Stanley brought the hood, and Marion and Gerty walked down toward the gate.

"Well, and how do you get on?" asked Gertrude.

"Very well," said Marion; but she could not repress a little sigh, which Gerty's quick ear caught directly.

"Stanley makes a long stay, doesn't she?" said Gerty. "I don't know which I wonder at most, her mother's blindness or father's."

"Blindness?" repeated Marion. "What do you mean?"

"Why, can't you see, you little innocent, that she is setting her cap for Harry? I am very much mistaken if they do not understand each other already."

"Well, what if they do? I am sure Stanley would make an excellent minister's wife," said Marion, whose better nature could not help liking Stanley, despite her occasional fits of jealousy.

"Yes, but think what a disadvantage to him to be entangled so young in an engagement to a girl without a cent in the world! I don't believe that her mother will allow that, however. I fancy she has higher views for Stanley than making her a minister's wife. I hear she means to take her abroad."

Marion did not know what to say. To her unsophisticated New England mind, marrying a minister seemed anything but a poor prospect—marrying Harry especially.

"However, it is none of my business, I suppose," continued Gertrude; "I washed my hands of the whole concern long ago. But that was not what I was going to say when I brought you out here by ourselves. Marion, I want you to come and make me a good long visit. It would be a real mercy to me, I know, and I will try to make it pleasant for you. I am so much alone, and with my delicate health it is very depressing. The Bottom is a pretty little place, and we have some very good society there. I am sure you would enjoy yourself."

"I should, I dare say; but there are my lessons, you know," said Marion, doubtfully.

"Oh, your lessons won't suffer; you can bring your books along and I can help you with them, and I have a piano. I suppose you have begun music?"

"No; Cousin Helen advised me not," said Marion. "She said it was late for me to begin, and I would do better to keep on with my drawing, because I had a real talent and had a good start. I am getting on nicely with that, she says."

"Oh!" said Mrs. Gerty, significantly. "I should not suppose she was the one to decide about that. I think every young lady should know something of music, as there is no knowing when she may be called upon to play. However, I know how Mrs. Andrews gets everything under her thumb."

"I have learned a little music," said Marion. "I knew the notes a long time ago, and Lizzy Gates showed me the piano keys and some tunes when I was at home, and Stanley has taught me two or three very pretty pieces since she came. But I am sure I should never play like Stanley, or even Bessy, if I was to practice for ever; and I like drawing a great deal better, after all. Cousin Helen paints beautifully in water-colours."

"Oh, well, no doubt you do well to make the best of it, but I should hardly—However, I never even hint a word of advice about family affairs nowadays. But I really wish you could come and stay with me a few weeks or months. You could do so much to make the house cheerful and you must see that it is very hard for me to be alone all day long, with nobody to speak to but the servant. Come, I know you will. And you might do so much good in our Sunday School. But I suppose you have a class here, of course?"

"No, I am in Cousin Helen's Bible class," said Marion, who was rather sensitive on this point.

"Indeed! Well, I am surprised. However of course, Mrs. Andrews manages that as she does everything else—her own way. I suppose she will want to run the tannery next."

"Have you a Sunday school at Rock Bottom?" asked Marion.

"Oh yes, and a very nice church and minister—at least every one thinks him very nice. I confess his preaching does not come up to my ideas. I like a sermon to be an intellectual feast. Oh how I did enjoy my Sundays in B—! It did seem a little hard to come back and be buried in such a place as Rock Bottom again. I do wish Asahel would move over to Coaltown and engage in some business there. But come, now, say that you will go home with us when we go. I am sure you will like it."

And Marion at last said she would go if mother was willing.

"Oh, mother will be willing if I want you. I always get my way somehow or other," said Gerty. "I have a great deal of will-power. I don't believe in giving up, and I almost invariably carry out my schemes."

"But somebody must give up," said Marion. "All the people in the world can't have their own way. For instance, if you have a plan, and I have another, exactly opposed to it, one of us must give way."

"There comes a leaf out of Mrs. Andrews's book," said Gerty, laughing. "I see she is getting you under her thumb as she does every one else—everybody but me, that is. I did have to give up that time," said Gerty, with a sigh. "I own I am no match for a woman like her. I could not live in the same place with her; and as they were all with her and against me, I gave way for the sake of peace. But about your going with me. I'll tell you what I will do. I have a very nice piano and play very well, though I say it. Indeed, I was called the best pianist in my class at Eaton College, though, thanks to favouritism, I wasn't allowed to play at the class concert. I'll give you lessons on the piano, and you will show Mrs. Andrews that she does not know everything."

"Girls, what are you doing out in this dew?" said Mr. Van Alstine, coming in at the gate. "It is enough to wet you through and through, and give you both rheumatism."

"And to take all the stiffness out of my new piqué," exclaimed Gerty, in alarm. "And I dare say I have soiled the bottom on this horrid tanbark walk. Now, if that is not too bad!"

"You should have had more wit," said Mr. Van Alstine. "Come, never mind; it's only calico, isn't it?"

"Calico, indeed! My beautiful new piqué that I gave a dollar a yard for at Stewart's! I might have known better. Come, Marion, let's go in."

"Do you really want to go home with Gerty, Marion, or is it only one of her fancies?" said her mother the next day.

"I told her I would go if you were willing to have me," answered Marion. "She seems to be very lonely and to want me for company, and perhaps I can be of some use to her."

"I dare say you can. Most people can be of use if they are willing to be taught the right way," said her mother, somewhat dryly. "I dare say you will find such a visit pleasant for a little while. The Bottom is a pretty place, and I should like to have you know the minister. He was a friend of mine when I needed a friend very much, and it was by his means that I came to the valley in the first place. He has a very nice family of daughters."

"Gerty does not seem to like him very much," said Marion.

"So I hear. She says some of the young people think he is growing too old, and want a young minister."

"Well, I must say I think that is a queer taste," said Marion. "I don't understand it a bit. I do think an old minister is so very much nicer than a young one."

"I quite agree with you, my dear; but you know all the ministers had to be young once."

"Then I think the young ones ought to be set to help the old ones till they learn how. They are always so conceited; don't you think so?"

"Well, not always," said her mother, turning to the window and scrutinizing very closely a small hole in a damask towel. "As to this visit, my dear, I will speak to father about it. I think perhaps you ought to go for a little while. Aunt Eugenia will miss your reading, but we must try to make it up for her."

"I did not suppose Aunt Eugenia would ever want to see me again," said Marion.

"Why? On account of the snuff? Oh, that was only an error in judgment—a little bit of zeal without knowledge, such as the young ministers you dislike are apt to fall into. Auntie enjoys your reading aloud very much. She says you read more distinctly than any of us."

The boys came home in the evening delighted with their expedition and loaded with booty.

"What in the world have you got there?" asked Gerty.

"Roots and herbs, stocks and stones," answered Frank, gayly. "Just think, Marie! Three new specimens for the woodpile, besides famous ones in place of those that poor Maggy cremated."

"How glad I am!" said Marion; and she really was.

"And that basket is full of beautiful red berries and ground-pine," said Bram.

"And such leaves for your painting, Cousin Helen and Marie."

"And a box full of monotropas; so Marie can paint one from the life if she chooses."

"And Frank has a rattlesnake, a yard long and more, with thirteen rattles."

"Fourteen, if you please, and a button. Don't that make him fifteen years old, father?"

"So they say, my boy. Is this interesting pet of yours alive?"

"Not he," said Henry; "I took care of that. I like natural history well enough, but I don't care to have it walking around loose, especially with poison-fangs in its jaws. And, father, the barkers have finished up in the Jones tract and will be down to-night. And Abner Jones wants to burn his logging-piece, and he says he thinks the rest of the neighbours would agree if you would, but I told him I was pretty sure you would not as things were now."

"Quite right, my son. I don't want any burnings till that bark is hauled. Did you hear how Clarke's folks were?"

"The woman is better, but Abner Jones's wife says the poor girl will die."

"And a good thing it will be if she does," said Gerty.

"I thought perhaps we might send some one up to help them a little," continued Harry, without noticing the interruption.

"Miranda Pratt told me yesterday that she would go, but I don't suppose they can very well afford even to keep her," she added, looking at her husband.

"I'll see to that," said Mr. Van Alstine. "Clarke is one of the best hands we have."

"Well, really, father, I should think that was going a good way," said Gerty. "Do you pay nurses for all your hands?"

"When all my hands need nurses, it will be time to settle that question," replied Mr. Van Alstine, coolly. "Harry, I think James had better put Old Gray in the little wagon and take Miranda right over. Mother, can't you and Amity cook up something to send them?"

"I'm glad you feel so rich, I'm sure," remarked Gerty. "I thought the tannery was hardly paying expenses, from all I was told."

"The tannery will pay some expenses better than others, my girl," said Mr. Van Alstine, in the deep voice which always showed that his patience was waxing threadbare.

"Which means that it will pay any expenses better than mine," returned Gerty. "Oh, I am not going to say anything, Asahel. I hope I have learned to know my place by this time. I'm sure I am sorry, father, if I have said anything wrong."

"Fiddle-de-dee!" said Mr. Van Alstine. "Boys, don't you think you had better pick up some of your scientific trash and get it out of your mother's way?"

"And get washed and dressed in time for supper?" added their mother. "You all look a little too much like wild men of the woods, to sit down to a civilized table."

"What do you think of this plan of Marion's going to stay with Gerty?" asked Mrs. Van Alstine of her husband that night when they were alone.

"I think it is a very good one," said Mr. Van Alstine. "Marion's great trouble seems to me to be that she doesn't know when she is well off, and I think she will find out if she stays with Gerty a month or two."

"I didn't think of letting her stay so long as that," said Eiley.

"My advice to you is to let her stay till she gets tired of it, or till Gerty is tired of her," replied her husband. "Maybe she will find out then what it means to have a good home."

"But her lessons?"

"There are more lessons than those to be learned out of books, my dear. I am not at all sorry that matters have taken this turn."

"I am disappointed in Marion, I must confess," said Mrs. Van Alstine, with a sigh. "I thought Barbara's teaching would turn out quite a different sort of a girl. Barbara is the most self-sacrificing person I ever saw."

"Exactly; and she has taken every stick and stone out of Marion's way, and let the girl walk over her in every direction. That is one explanation, I suspect. But Gerty won't do that, you know very well."

"Gerty is peculiar," said Eiley, with another little sigh.

"Peculiar! Yes, I should think so," said Mr. Van Alstine. "I wish she had been married ten times before Asahel ever saw her. Do you know what scheme she has in her head now?"

"Not I. I saw there was something in the wind, but she hasn't said anything to me."

"Well, she wants me to sell out the tannery at the Bottom and give Asahel the money to invest in iron works in Coaltown."

"Iron works! What in the world does she think he would do with iron works? He knows nothing about them."

"No, but her kinsman over there, Mr. Jackson, is engaged in a furnace, and wants Asahel to go in with him."

"I hope you won't consent?" said Mrs. Van Alstine, rather anxiously.

"You may believe I didn't; I have seen too much of that sort of thing. I said no straight up and down, and I believe Asahel was glad of it."

"But what put it in their heads?"

"Oh, the reason is plain enough. Gerty complains that she is buried in Rock Bottom, and she wants to go to Coaltown and make as much figure as Mrs. Jackson. Well, there! I won't let it make a fool of me. The Lord has borne with me all these years, and it's a pity if I can't bear with her."

"And about Marie?"

"Let her go, by all means, only make her understand that this is always her home and she will be welcome here. And, by the way, what do you think about Harry and Stannie now?"

"I think it is turning out as we hoped it would," answered Mrs. Van Alstine; "but don't you hint by word or look as if you saw anything, or you may spoil it all."

"Of course not," said her husband, who, it appears, saw farther than Gerty had given him credit for.

CHAPTER XVI.

"OVER IN THE JONES DISTRICT."

THE days passed on into weeks, and still Gerty stayed on at the valley.

Mr. Van Alstine utterly refused to agree to the change of plans which Asahel, or rather Gerty, had so greatly desired, but to soften his refusal as much as possible, he had voluntarily proposed to put the house in which Asahel lived in better order, and especially to paint it inside and out. Mrs. Van Alstine invited Gerty to stay while this work was going on, and Gerty accepted the invitation and remained two weeks at the valley, Asahel going back and forth and coming home for Sunday.

Gerty certainly did not make the house any pleasanter by her presence. It was not that she did anything so very much out of the way, beyond a little meddling, which Eileen overlooked and Maggy treated with by no means silent contempt. But her tongue was a perpetual annoyance. She had the most exquisite knack of saying little disagreeable things, of enlarging upon disagreeable subjects, of running against people's tenderest feelings and strongest prepossessions, and then wondering how they could be so weak as to be hurt.

For instance, she entertained Mrs. Van Alstine and Marion a whole morning with reading an account of one who fancied himself a poet and made himself ridiculous thereby. She enlarged on the uselessness of foreign missions and the idle, self-indulgent lives led by missionaries, for the benefit of Mrs. Andrews, who, however, silenced her by an array of facts and figures which she was not at all prepared to answer. She knew that all three of the ladies at the valley hated gossip, and she regaled them with all the scandals of Rock Bottom and Coaltown collectively. All this was not done inadvertently.

All her life long, Gerty's tongue had been the dread of friends and enemies alike. She was well aware of her powers, and took as much pleasure in exercising them as other women do in needlework or music. Nothing was sacred from her attacks, not a weakness of old or young among her acquaintances escaped notice or comment. There was no enthusiasm which she could not and would not turn into ridicule, no cause she could not decry, no self-sacrifice or self-devotion for which she could not find some unworthy motive or in which she did not see some folly.

And yet Gerty was not without her good qualities. She was always ready to visit the poor and sick, she was an admirable and economical manager, and she denied herself many personal luxuries that she might have money to give to some poor cousins. But her tongue, that unruly evil, poisoned all.

Marion, who had begun by thinking Gerty an abused angel, was thoroughly disenchanted before the term of Gerty's visit was ended, and that although Gerty was more civil to her than to any other member of the family. Indeed, a change was coming over Marion which she could not explain, but which made her very unhappy. It was nothing new for her to be discontented with those around her and to wish herself anywhere but where she was, but now the dissatisfaction seemed to be transferred to herself. She began to have doubts of her own superiority to all about her. She saw how far she was behind her brothers in attainments. She began to see how much she was inferior to them in real goodness. When she turned for comfort to her religious exercises, she found they had no comfort to give. Her prayers were unreal and utterly lifeless, and she could not keep her attention fixed upon them. It scared her to discover how often she went on with a form of good words, even composing sentence after sentence of prayer, while her heart was far away among the vanities in which she had lived so long. She tried to betake herself to her old reveries, but they gave her no pleasure even while she indulged in them. Hungry and thirsty, her soul fainted in her, yet she would not cry unto the Lord in her trouble that she might be delivered from her distress, but strove vainly—and oh, how vainly!—to find her way out by herself.

"Are you good for an expedition, Marie?" asked Frank, one Sunday at dinner.

They had had their ordinary services in the chapel, followed by Sunday school, and were sitting down to the usual Sunday dinner, which, though mostly cold, was as dainty a repast as heart could wish.

"An expedition! Yes, of course; I suppose so," answered Marion, who, under the tuition of Stanley and the boys, was learning to be a good deal of a woods-woman. "Where do you mean to go, and when?"

"This afternoon, and up through the valley and along the bank of Cedar Run to the Jones school-house. Is that too far for you?"

"Oh no. But it is Sunday," said Marion, puzzled.

"Well, isn't it proper to go to prayer meeting on Sunday?"

"Oh! Why, yes, of course. Yes, I should like it very much."

"Good! We'll start about half-past three, to give ourselves plenty of time, and take the saw-mill road through the woods and along the banks of the run. It will be bright moonlight coming home, you know; and you and Stannie were saying only yesterday that you wanted to be in the woods at night."

"But what is this meeting, that you are going so far for it? Anything out of the common?" asked Gerty.

"Nothing at all, only as being a meeting in the Jones district, which has been rather uncommon of late years," answered Bram. "Coming home yesterday, we stopped at Abner Jones's house for a drink; and as dinner was ready, of course they made us stay. So Harry began to talk to them about coming over to chapel, and they made the usual excuse of its being too far. Then Harry asked:

"'Suppose there was a meeting held in the school-house, would anybody come?'

"And they seemed very much pleased, and agreed to give notice to all the neighbours round about. So on talking the matter over, we concluded that some singing would add to the interest of the occasion and show that we were in earnest ourselves, and so we concluded to ask the girls to join in—or, if you like it better, to invite the young ladies to participate. And there you have the story in a nutshell."

"But who is to conduct this meeting?" asked Gerty, not without suspicion that Bram was mystifying her.

"Why, Harry, of course. Who else?"

"Oh, excuse me. I didn't suppose that kind of thing was in Harry's line at present but perhaps it is as well to begin in season."

"It has been very much in my line the last year, I assure you," said Harry. "Three of our men have kept three different meetings going ever since the beginning of last term. One was six miles away, and the man whose turn it was, used to ride about as gallant a steed as Old Gray. Only for the name, I really think it would have been less trouble to walk."

"Where did you get this horse of yours?" asked Mr. Van Alstine, with a glance at Asahel.

"Oh, we hired him of an old couple who thought him a compound of all the virtues ever put into a horse's skin—Bucephalus and Pegasus too, for aught I know."

"I suppose that was the origin of the story Gerty heard about your hiring horses to ride out of town Sunday afternoons," said Mr. Van Alstine.

Gerty coloured and cast a glance at her husband which spoke volumes, but she did not say a word.

Henry smiled and the rest looked indignant.

"I should like to know—" began Frank; but Henry stopped him:

"No, you wouldn't, doctor. Believe me, the knowledge wouldn't afford you the slightest pleasure. It is nothing new. Somebody told the same story to prex—I beg your pardon, mother; I mean our respected president. The next time I rode out, he was standing at his own gate.

"He stopped me and said gravely, 'Van Alstine, I doubt the propriety of your riding that horse to-day; it seems to me to be unnecessary labour. Don't you think it would be less trouble to walk?'"

"I suppose he knew where you were going?"

"Of course; we told him all about it before we began, and asked his advice. Please excuse me, mother; I want to look out some hymns. Will you help me, girls? We must set out at half-past three, you know."

"I wish we could go," said Hector, speaking for himself, as usual.

"You shall next time," said his brother; "but it would be rather too much Van Alstine if we all went. We should fill the school-house all by ourselves."

"You shall go with me," said Mr. Van Alstine; "I am going over to see old Mrs. Hollenback. Chris told me yesterday the old lady was worse and would not last long."

At half-past three all were ready, the girls, in short dresses and stout boots, looking very pretty under their shady hats, the boys with a parcel each of hymn-books, and pockets filled with cards and tracts for the children.

They had a charming walk through the woods and up the little stream known as the Cedar Run. It was a favourite exploit to scramble up the rocky bed and between the high banks through which the stream forced its way, but to-day they kept to the road, which ran on the top of the cliff. Arriving in good time, they found the school-house well filled.

"How shall we get in?" asked Marion, in a low voice. "We shall be regularly crowded."

"So much the better," answered Harry. "It is always a great point gained to have people sitting close together. It is regularly dispiriting to have a meeting in a room that is twice too large. But you'll find more room than you think. The men always stand outside till service begins."

The house was certainly well filled, but the girls found tolerably comfortable places by the open window. Harry took his place on the platform, behind the teacher's table, looking even more youthful than usual. He bent his head for a time in silent prayer, and Marion saw that both the boys and Stanley were engaged in the same way. A curious feeling of hushed expectation came over her such as she had never felt before; and for once forgetting herself, she prayed earnestly that Harry might have the help he needed. It was one of the few prayers that Marion had ever uttered which had no reference to herself.

Presently, Harry stood up and opened the meeting by giving out a familiar hymn. Without a moment's hesitation, Stanley's clear, cultivated voice struck up the tune. The boys fell in and were joined by one and another of the congregation, till at last the singing became general. Then Harry read a chapter from the gospel and offered a prayer.

"How composed he is!" said Marion to herself. "He does not seem to think of himself at all. I wonder if that is the reason?"

After the second hymn, Harry invited some one to speak. There was a little silence, and then an old farmer arose and said a few words relative to the chapter which had been read. He was followed by another, and then came another prayer. Then came one of those silences which are so much dreaded by some conductors of meetings, but which often seem to me to be fuller of meaning and of refreshment than any spoken words. It was broken by the voice of a man from near the door:

"I wish the friends here would pray for me. My wife's a Christian woman, and so is my poor girl. I thought I was a Christian myself once, but—" His voice grew husky and broke. "Anyhow, I was taught to believe that prayers brought down blessings, and I want you all to pray for me and poor Mary."

There was another short silence, which was broken this time, to Marion's surprise, by Bram. His prayer was short and to the point. The first speaker followed, and then Stanley began singing "Alas, and did my Saviour bleed?" to the old sacred tune of "Ortonville." (Will any tunes have the same sacredness to the coming generation that these old tunes have to us?)

The man who had asked for prayers had his head bowed on his hands, and was sobbing like a child.

Frank whispered to Marion that he was Clarke, the barker, to whose sick wife his father had sent a nurse the day before.

Marion could not sing. She listened to the tune with feelings such as she had never known before. How gloriously Stanley sung, as if she felt every word! Others joined in. Tears fell down rugged faces, and many sobbed aloud besides the poor afflicted husband, but Marion, though she felt utterly lonely and miserable, could not cry. She was as one shut out. She seemed to herself to have no part in the matter. There was an aching pain at her heart which she did not understand. She had come prepared, as she said to herself, to support Henry by her presence and throw all her influence on the right side. She had even entertained serious thoughts of speaking herself.

Her mother, Amity, and Mrs. Andrews all did so in the little social prayer meeting in the valley. She had even decided on her subject and turned it over in her mind on the way, arranging several neat and effective phrases. But now she felt that she could not have spoken a word. She wished the meeting would come to an end, and yet she dreaded the conclusion.

At last, however, all was over, and the meeting was broken up.

She was standing by herself, apparently looking at a red vine clambering up the rough side of an old hemlock, when she was joined by Bram.

"Where is Harry?" asked Marion.

"Oh, he is going to stay and sit up at Clarke's to-night," said Bram. "They think the poor woman may not live till morning, and Clarke is all but beside himself. He seemed to cling so to Harry that finally Harry said he would stay with him, so you will have to be content with the escort of the middle boys, as Betsy used to call Frank and me. You won't be afraid, will you?"

"Afraid!" said Marion, absently. "Of what? Oh, of going home with you and Frank? No, of course not."

"Well, come on, then. Frank and Stannie, have gone ahead, to stop and inquire for some other family where they have a case of sickness, but we shall come up with them; or if we don't, it's no great matter."

"Well, how did you like the meeting," said Bram after they had walked a little way in silence.

"I thought it was very interesting," said Marion. "I am glad Harry is going to be a minister. I am sure he will make a good one."

"Yes, we all think so," said Bram. "He has had a bent that way ever since he was a little fellow."

"Why don't you ever take part in the meetings down in the chapel?" asked Marion, presently.

"Oh, because—Well, there are plenty of older people, you know, and I don't seem to be needed, so I would rather keep still and listen. But it was different to-night, and I felt so sorry for poor Clarke. But why didn't you, if it comes to that? You didn't even sing."

"I couldn't," answered Marion, shortly. "I didn't seem to have any voice, or any heart, either," she added, presently. "I seemed to feel as if I was outside of the whole concern, as if I had no business there—as if—" Marion's voice was choked and died away.

"Well, as if what, Marie dear?" asked Bram, gently. "Don't tell me if you don't want to, but perhaps you might feel better if you did. Say out what is in your mind."

"I felt as if there was somebody present that every one saw and I was trying to see and hear, but couldn't," said Marion, at last. "I can't express it any better than that."

"I understand," said Bram.

"Bram, tell me one thing," said Marion, "and please don't be affronted or think I mean to be unkind: when you made that prayer, were you thinking of how it sounded or what people would think about it?"

"No, not after the first minute," said Bram. "I was just a little scared at the sound of my own voice at first, but not afterward."

Marion sighed, but said no more, and they walked on in silence a few minutes, till Bran said,—

"Marie, I am sorry you are going away. What makes you go?"

"Well, Gerty wants me, and she seems to be so lonely; and if I can do her any good—"

"All right," said Bram. "I hope you are not going because you are not happy at our house; are you?"

Marion took a sudden resolution, perhaps, born of her late emotion:

"I'll tell you just why I do go, Bram, only please don't tell any one. It's just like this: I thought when I came here that I was going to be of great use and do ever so much good, but I haven't done one bit, only made myself ridiculous and made everybody despise me, and I think I would rather go away and begin somewhere else."

"Begin what?" asked Bram.

It was a very simple question, but somehow Marion found she had great difficulty in answering it.

"Well, begin—begin doing good—begin—Well, you know, Bram, if I should do ever so well now, I couldn't ever have any influence after all that has happened. Nobody would have any respect for me, after all the mistakes I have made."

"I don't exactly know what mistakes you mean, Marie. To be sure, it was rather a blunder to burn up Frank's scientific woodpile, but it was no such great matter, after all. And besides, don't you expect to make any mistakes where you are going?"

"I suppose I shall," said Marion, in a choked voice. "I thought it would be all so different when I came here—that I was going to be so good and have such a Christian influence in the family. And I did try to. And there is Stanley, who never seems to think about what sort of an example she is setting. She can do anything with Betsy, and—"

"Don't you think perhaps you have thought too much about influence and example, and so on?" said Bram, after a little.

"I don't know," answered Marion, doubtfully. "You know the Scripture says, 'Let your light so shine before men.'"

"Yes, I know; we are to 'let' it shine, not make it shine. You see, if it is a real light, it will shine anyhow, and there is no need to hold it up and wave it about. That is the way with Stanley. Her light shines all the time, softly and steadily, because it is a real light and must shine by its very nature. Father says she is one of the most consistent Christians he ever knew. She never seems to think about herself at all."

Somehow these few words seemed to throw a very strong light upon Marion's troubles: "She never seems to think of herself at all! And I think of nothing else."

They walked along a little way, and then Bram said abruptly,—

"After all, Marion, I am sorry you are going away. We have always wanted a sister so much, and it has been very pleasant having you here. And besides, between ourselves, I'm afraid you won't find it very comfortable living with Gerty. I don't want to say anything against her—she's Asahel's wife and my sister-in-law—but you must see for yourself."

"I know," said Marion. "I thought she was lovely when I met her on the cars and when she first came here. But I have promised, you know, Bram, and I can't get out of it now if I wished it ever so much. A promise is a promise."

"To be sure. You are not obliged to stay, and she is certain to treat you well for three or four weeks. But, Marie, about this matter of Christian influence. I wish you would talk to Harry; I don't think you have got the right notion about it."

"Sometimes I think I am not a Christian at all, Bram."

"Well, then, begin and be one now. What hinders?"

"I don't suppose any one would believe me."

"Well, what if they didn't? It isn't that you want. Don't you know what was said about the Pharisees—that they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God? That was their great hindrance."

Marion was silent. It seemed as if Bram was bent on showing her all her own worst weaknesses and follies. Had not "the praise of men" been her chief object all her life thus far?

Bram seemed to think he had said enough, and then began on a different topic:

"Marion, do you know your uncle Campbell's present address?"

"Red Wing, Minnesota," answered Marion. "I had a letter from Aunt Christian only yesterday. Why?"

"Do you suppose Doctor Campbell would think it a liberty if I should write and ask him about some things I would like very much to know?"

"Of course not," answered Marion. "He would be very much pleased, I am sure. He thinks anybody who wants to hear about missions must be all right."

"I thought we should hear a great deal about them from you," pursued Bram. "Didn't your uncle and aunt talk about their work?"

"Yes, but I was in school and had my lessons and my work, you know, and Therese was at our house all the time almost."

But in her heart she felt ashamed of these excuses when she made them, for she knew that they were false. She knew that her attention had been so constantly occupied with her own day-dreams that she had no thought to bestow on the cause of missions.

"But I am sure Uncle Duncan will like to hear from you," she continued, hastily. "I think you will suit each other exactly. He is very fond of botany and natural history, and he is an excellent man and very agreeable. Yes, I know you will like him and he will like you."

"That is a compliment, certainly," said Bram. "And your aunt?"

"Aunt Christian is mother over again, only a little sharper."

"Then I know I shall like her," said Bram. "Hark!" he continued, after a few moments' silence. "Don't you hear the waterfall? How sweet it sounds!"

"The water must be high, I should think," said Marion. "How near is it? I wonder if we could get a glimpse?"

"It is just under our feet. The bank hangs over a little. Take care, Marie! Don't go too near the edge."

But the caution came too late. Marion had stepped to the edge to get a view of the little waterfall, and leaned over, holding fast by a small tree which grew close by.

"I am holding on," said she. But even as she spoke, the ground gave way under her feet, and she and the tree went together down the steep, rough bank. It was fully fifty feet from where she had been standing to the bottom of the rocky ravine.

Bram stood still in horror a moment, then he gave a long, loud whistle, and sprang to the edge.

"Marion, Marie!" he called.

"All right," answered a voice from below. "I am not much hurt, Bram, but I am stuck in a tree and can't stir."

"Thank Heaven!" exclaimed Bram, fervently. "Keep quite still, dear. Frank will be here in a minute, and then we will see what can be done."

"What's the matter?" asked Frank, coming up with Stanley, considerably out of breath. "We have been walking slow and waiting for you ever so long. Where's Marie?"

"She has fallen over the bank," answered Bram; "but she has answered, so she is not killed. You have the lantern, haven't you?"

Frank produced the pocket-lantern, opened and lighted it.

Bram held it over the bank, but the distance was too great for the little wax taper, and he could see nothing.

He called again:

"Marion, can you see us?"

"I can see the light," answered Marion; "but I am afraid to move, the tree shakes so."

She evidently made an effort to speak distinctly and cheerfully, but there was suffering as well as terror in the sound of her voice.

The brothers hastily consulted together.

"It will never do to try to go down here," said Bram; "we shall only send the stones down on her. Where is the nearest place?"

"The Cat Stairs," said Stanley.

Bram shook his head.

"Not in the dark."

"But you might hang the lantern round your neck, as you did the basket the other day," suggested Stanley. "If you could get down to her, you might encourage her to hold on. Then I could run back to James Tanner's and bring the boys, and Frank could go on to the saw-mill and do the same after he had seen you down the stairs."

"That's the best plan, depend upon it," said Frank. "Marie, can you hold on a little longer? Bram is trying to come down to you, and Stannie is going after help. Can you hold on?"

"I'll try. Yes, I think I can, if the tree don't break; but don't let Bram hurt himself. If one of you could hold the light so that I could see it."

"Bram will have to take it to see his way down the stairs, I'm afraid, but I'll stay and talk to you, if that will do."

"No, no; help Bram; never mind me."

Bram scrambled halfway down the steep descent; then he turned and came back.

"Dizzy, old fellow?" asked Frank as he saw his pale face.

"No, but it's no use; I can't get near her. She is hanging someway in that broken hemlock right over the fall. Where's Stannie?"

"Gone back to Tanner's. I believe I had best do as she said, and run on to the mill."

Almost with the words Frank sprang away.

Bram leaned over as far as he dared, holding the lantern down:

"Can you see the light, Marie darling?"

"Yes," was the answer.

"Frank has gone to the saw-mill for help, and he will soon be back. Keep up good courage, dear."

"Bram, if I should fall, if they shouldn't get me up alive—"

"We shall, please God; but what then?"

"Will you tell mother and father that I am sorry I have given them so much trouble, and write the same to Aunt Baby and grandfather? I have been very selfish and conceited all my life. I have lived in a kind of dream; I see it now. Oh, Bram, if I were only a Christian like you, I shouldn't be so afraid to die."

"Don't, don't, Marion! Oh, if I could only get down to you—only do you any good!"

"You do me good where you are. You 'let your light shine' now, Bram. Don't feel too bad, dear; it was nobody's fault. I don't think it was even my own, for I was holding on. Bram."

"Well, darling?"

"Pray for me, won't you? Oh, Bram, if I could only see Him!"

"He sees you, dearest Marie—believe me he does. Oh, turn to him. Just put yourself into his hands, can't you? Lean on him, and he will hold you safely all through. Can't you?"

"I'll try," said Marion, faintly. "Oh, I wish they would come."

"They are coming," said Bram, joyfully; "I see the lights. Yes, here comes Frank with the men from the mill. Now we shall be all right."

Frank came up with the three men from the saw-mill, and in the same minute, Stanley arrived with the two Tanner boys, fine, well-grown young men.

After some delay and a good deal of danger to herself and others, Marion was raised and set on firm land once more.

"How are you hurt?" asked Bram and Frank together.

"I don't think I am much hurt anyway; only scratched and twisted and tumbled about," said Marion, trying to laugh; but the laugh ended in a hysterical sob. And she dropped down on the ground, put her head on her hands, and fainted away.

"I'm afraid she is killed," said Bram.

"Oh no, I don't believe she is," said Stanley, cheerfully. "She is only overdone and frightened. Lay her down flat on the ground; she'll soon be better. How shall we carry her home?"

"We can bring a team up from the saw-mill directly," said James Tanner. "That will be the best way, I think."

The wagon was soon brought, and in another hour, Marion was at home and in her mother's bed, and Mr. Overbeck with his best horse on the way to Ivanhoe to bring the doctor.

CHAPTER XVII.

IN MOTHER'S ROOM.

THE village was six miles off, so that even Van Alstine & Overbeck's best trotter, with his master driving him, could not bring the doctor immediately.

Meantime, Marion was undressed and laid in her mother's bed. She was much bruised and lacerated, one great scratch just missing her left eye, and suffered acutely from every movement, and her father pronounced at once that her collar-bone was broken. She was very patient, keeping herself as quiet as possible, and only anxious that nobody should blame Bram.

Mrs. Van Alstine was quiet and collected, doing everything in the best manner, and assisted as well as possible by Mrs. Andrews and Amity. Mr. Van Alstine's strong and gentle arms held Marion while her bed was arranged, and his deep, grave voice reassured and soothed her. He had just laid her down, when Frank put in his head and called him out into the parlour.

Bram lay on the sofa with his head buried in his arms, and Gerty was talking to him. She had been dismissed from Marion's room at a very early stage of the proceedings, ostensibly that she need not injure herself or bring on one of her bad attacks, and by way of making things pleasant was expressing her opinion of the whole transaction.

"Anybody might have known how it would turn out, sending such a party of young people off on such an expedition with no older person along. Pray where was Henry?"

"He stayed behind to sit up at Clarke's," answered Frank, in the measured tones which showed that his temper was near the boiling-point.

"What did he do that for?" asked Gerty, in the same judicial tone as if she were examining a witness.

"Because he chose to, I suppose."

"Well, really, Frank, I think you might at least answer civilly. I don't see what call you have to be so angry, when I only asked for information."

"Do please be quiet, Gerty," whispered Stanley, imploringly.

"I shall be quiet when I see fit, Miss Stanley; and I will thank you to call me by my right name. But that is always the way. Nobody must hint that the boys are to blame, whatever happens. I don't want to hurt Bram's feelings, but I do think nobody has a right to be so giddy, frolicking and romping in the woods on Sunday evening."

"I was not frolicking and romping," said Bram, in a half-choked voice; "anything but that."

"Oh, of course you were not doing anything wrong, you never are."

"Gerty," said Mr. Van Alstine, "be quiet instantly."

Gerty looked up in amazement, and met her father-in-law's eye. The red spark was dangerously bright.

She sailed with dignity out of the room, and was heard to slam three successive doors in her progress to her own apartment.

"Indeed, father, we were not romping or frolicking at all," said Bram, raising his head from the pillow once more. "Marie leaned over to see if she could get a glimpse of the fall, and she was not a bit careless either. She was holding on by the tree, and I never knew the bank would crumble."

"Nor I, my son. I don't think any one was to blame. It was just an unlucky accident."

"How is Marie?"

"She has broken her collar-bone and is considerably bruised, but I think that is the worst. Here comes the doctor at last."

Doctor Fenn was an old army-surgeon who had seen hard service in field and hospital. He was a thorough New Englander, in birth and breeding, and his greeting of "W—a—ll, my girl?" sounded homelike and natural to Marion's Green Mountain ear. Somewhat rough-looking at the first glance, no woman could be gentler or more delicate in a sickroom, and his steady, firm hand was reassuring in itself.

"Wall," said Doctor Fenn after he had concluded his examination, "it isn't as bad as it might be, considering. The right collar-bone is the only one broken, but there are a good many sprains and bruises, and it is possible there may be some internal injury. You must be a pretty good hand at falling down, Marion, to get off with so little damage."

"You don't think I shall die, then?" said Marion.

"Not this time, I think. But I can tell better how you are in a day or two; and unless there is more the matter than I see now, I think six weeks or so in bed will probably be the worst of it. Now, Mr. Van Alstine, we will put this bone to rights, and then we must keep all quiet about our patient, and perhaps she may get some sleep."

But Marion got very little sleep for that or several succeeding nights. The scratches on her face and arms inflamed and were very painful. She was bruised and strained all over, and the constrained position was almost intolerably irksome to one who had never been confined to her bed a day in her life. Even if her right arm had not been bound close to her side, her wrists had been so stretched and sprained in her desperate grasp of the old hemlock, that she had almost no use of her hands, and was dependent on others for all sorts of personal offices.

It was a hard trial; nor was her illness the only trouble which befel the family at this time. Everybody knows that, as the old negro said, "single misfortunes never come alone." The day after Marion's accident, Mr. Van Alstine scalded his hand with steam in the tannery, and, to crown all, Harry was taken with a low, obstinate intermittent fever which seemed to defy all Doctor Fenn's skill, and kept the poor boy utterly miserable—too sick to leave his bed every other day, and just able to crawl down-stairs and lie on the sofa on what were called by courtesy his "well days."

If Marion had been as impatient under real troubles as she had often been under fancied grievances, she would have been a troublesome patient to manage. But either there had been a great change, or else suffering had developed the real force of character which lay concealed under a mask of weak self-indulgence. She never fretted and hardly ever complained, and made no trouble that she could help. Both Mrs. Andrews, who had seen a great deal of severe sickness, and Doctor Fenn declared they never had a more reasonable patient, and Maggy drew the most dismal auguries from the change in Marion.

"But she doesn't get on quite as well as I could wish, or as I think she ought to," said the doctor in a conference with her mother. "There's a want of elasticity that I don't like to see in one so young. I can't help thinking that she has got something on her mind."

"The same thing has occurred to me," said Mrs. Andrews. "She seems so entirely changed. You must have observed it, Eileen."

Mrs. Van Alstine shook her head, and her eyes filled with tears.

"I can't help thinking what father would say," she answered.

"What, that such a change of disposition was a forerunner of death? I believe that is the Scotch notion," said Mrs. Andrews. "What do you think of it, doctor?"

"I won't deny that I have seen something like that myself," remarked the doctor. "It isn't always so much a change, however, as that sickness brings out the real man or woman free from all disguise. I don't see anything like dying about our girl, however. The bone is uniting kindly, and all the other troubles are doing as well as we can expect. I dare say the confinement tells on her spirits. Do you think she may perhaps be under some religious depression?"

"I don't know," replied her mother. "She likes to hear the Bible read and to have her father or Henry pray with her, but she does not incline to talk much on the subject, and I don't like to drag her into it."

"No, that is never best. The older I grow, the more careful I feel about touching the religious experience of another with so much as my little finger. Sometimes, however, it happens that the patient would like very much to talk, but does not know how to begin, and such cases it is a comfort to have the ice broken. Well, you are the best judge, Mrs. Van Alstine, and I can safely leave her to you. Now let us see the rest of the hospital."

After all, it was to the doctor that Marion opened her heart at last. She was alone in her room. Mr. Van Alstine had sent for a reclining-chair of the newest and best construction for Marion, and she was half sitting, half lying in it before the window in her mother's room looking across the field to the beautiful wooded hills beyond.

This particular field was known as the colt-pasture. Owning some square miles of territory, Van Alstine Overbeck were not only tanners, but stock farmers on a great scale, and their horses were famous throughout the country. A dozen or more of the youthful four-legged aristocrats were amusing themselves with a private race round the great field.

It was one of the most beautiful of November Indian summer days. Frank had tempted his mother out for a drive, Mrs. Andrews had one of her rare but severe sick headaches, and Bram, who was Marion's most constant attendant, had been called out.

Marion was lying back in her chair watching the colts at their play. Her right arm was released from its bandage, but her wrists continued very lame, so that she was debarred the invalid's usual amusement of light fancy-work.

"Well, Marie, how goes it?" asked Doctor Fenn. He had come in at the long window on the verandah, which the warm afternoon allowed to be open, and sat down beside Marion.

"Pretty well, I believe," said Marion, rather wearily. "How are they at Amity's? I suppose you have come from there?"

For Bessy had distinguished herself and added to the family hospital by catching the measles, and of course the other children had followed her example.

"Oh, they are doing well. Nobody is sick enough to stay in bed but Betsy, and she will be out in a day or two. How are the hands?"

"I think they are better. I can hold a book a little while now," answered Marion.

"Better not try them too much," pronounced the doctor. "Slow and sure is the best cure for a sprain."

There was a little silence, and then the doctor asked rather abruptly, as his fashion was,—

"Sissy, what's the matter?"

Marion was silent.

"I don't want to pry into your secrets, my dear," said the doctor, gently, "but it does seem to me as if you had something on your mind that troubles you. Perhaps, if you can make up your mind to tell me what it is, I can lighten or help you to bear it. Can't you?"

"It was that meeting began it," said Marion, beginning as suddenly as the doctor had done. "I have never been happy one minute since then."

"And how did that begin it? You had been a Christian before that."

"I thought so," said Marion. "I even thought I was better than most, though I knew in my own soul that I was indulging myself in wrong tempers and ways. Oh, I was too silly for anything," cried Marion, covering her face with her hands. "I used to have all sorts of dreams about teaching and influencing others and leading a higher and more spiritual life than my good aunt and uncle and my old grandfather, and all the while I was idling away my time in school, missing my lessons, and making false excuses, despising better people than myself, and allowing myself to be in all sorts of bad tempers all the time. There never was one so foolish, I am sure."

"I am not," said the doctor. "I have heard more than one person talk loudly and abundantly about 'holiness' and 'the higher life' who did not seem to me to have learned the very A, B, C of Christian morals. Well?"

"That was the way with me when I came here," continued Marion. "It seems almost too bad to tell, but, Doctor Fenn, I was really vexed and disappointed when I found that father had family prayers and maintained a chapel. I thought I was going to be a kind of family missionary, like a girl I had read of in a book."

"A good many kinds of girls that one reads of in books are fortunately not often found in real life," said the doctor, dryly. "Life would hardly be bearable else."

"Well, I couldn't be here a great while without seeing how much better they all were than I," continued Marion. "I saw how kind they were to each other and to auntie and me, though I was always bothering and making mistakes, and how they all bore with poor Gerty, and you know she is trying sometimes."

"I think I do—sometimes."

"I had begun to see a little of all this, but somehow that night when we went to the meeting it was all displayed to me at once. It was just as I told Bram—as if the rest saw some one whom I was trying to see and hear, but couldn't for my life. Then Bram and I got talking coming home. I do think he is the very dearest boy that I ever heard of. I never thought it would be half so nice to have brothers, and he seemed to show me to myself. He said the Pharisees couldn't come into the kingdom of heaven because 'they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.' Then I saw that had been the way with me. I had not wished really to be a Christian, but only to be thought so. I thought it must be all right with me because I wanted to do so much work and have so much influence, and I used to spend hours in dreaming about it. But now I see there was no reality in it at all."

She stopped and sat silent.

"Well, and what are you going to do now?" asked the doctor. "Are you going to give the matter up in despair?"

"I don't want to give up, but I don't know what to do. I try to come to Christ and believe on him as the Bible says, but it seems all unreal, as if it were dreaming the same old dreams over again. I shall never have faith enough to be saved."

"My dear girl, I think you are under a mistake," said the doctor. "Faith is not a kind of currency wherewith people can buy salvation if only they have enough of it. It is rather the hand whereby one lays hold of salvation. If you had all faith, so that you could remove mountains, you would not thereby merit anything. If you have faith enough to come to Christ, you have enough to be saved by him.

"'If thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us and help us,' cried the poor father.

"We should call that a very weak faith, but our Lord helped instead of condemned it."

"But, doctor, how can I know that I am saved—that I have come?" asked Marion, eagerly. "How can I know for certain? Now it all seems dreamlike and vague, as if it might be one of my day-dreams."

"Do you believe in the Bible?"

"Certainly I do."

"Well, then, there is the ground of your assurance:

"'Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.'

"'That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.'

"You know whether you believe or not, don't you?"

"I know I do."

"Then what more assurance do you want?"

"But, Doctor Fenn, I want to feel it; I want to feel assured in my own heart as I have heard of other people. I can't make it seem real to me. I come back to the same place all the time," said Marion, smiling sadly.

"Don't you think that is a little bit like wanting a sign?" asked the doctor.

"I don't quite understand what you mean."

"Why, you won't believe the Lord on his simple assurance. You say, like the Jews,—

"'What sign shewest thou unto us?'

"You want him to give you more than his word. Is that using him well? Would you like it yourself?"

"But, Doctor Fenn, don't you think he does sometimes give that inward assurance, the consciousness that our sins are forgiven?"

"No doubt he does, and he will give it to you; but, after all, that is not the main ground of your dependence. He will have you believe his word first, and then he will work the miracle.

"'Believe ye that I am able to do this?' he said to the blind man.

"And no sooner had he answered than the response came,—

"'According to your faith be it unto you.'"

"I see," said Marion. "Then I am to believe my sins are forgiven though I don't feel it?"

"Undoubtedly, if you really repent."

"And how shall I know I really repent?"

"You really repent if you are ready to give up every sin of which you are conscious and pray for help never to commit it again. That is the true, and I believe the only, test. And now I think that you have talked enough and have enough to think about."

"Doctor, there is one thing more I should like to ask you," said Marion, detaining him. "Do you think that—Well, suppose you were conscious that something was wrong, and yet could not feel willing to give it up, what is one to do?"

"The question is whether you want to be willing?"

"Yes, indeed, I do," said Marion, with tears in her eyes.

"Then pray that your heart and will may be so sanctified that you shall hate sin because it is sinful," answered the doctor; "but, my dear girl, remember this—that you cannot take a single wilful sin into the kingdom with you. Remember that. Good-bye, my dear; I must not stay another minute."

Marion sat looking out of the window a while longer. Her face was dark and disturbed. She was going through a hard struggle, trying to say "good-bye" to a lifelong companion, to withdraw from the scenes where most of her life had hitherto been spent and shut the door behind her. She knew that the day-dreams in which she had indulged, though not sinful in themselves, perhaps, had become, like every amusement which is made an object, a temptation and snare to her. She knew that she had wasted precious time and opportunities never to be recalled while following the fortunes of the heiress of the McGregors. She felt, too, that, like one who has been a hard drinker, her only safety lay in total abstinence.

At last, as her mother returned from her drive and came in, Marion drew a long breath and turned away from the window. She had said a long farewell to the heiress of the McGregors.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THANKSGIVING.

MARION'S recovery was very slow and tedious. What she gained one week, she lost the next. She was able to sit up a part of every day, and after a while to go to dinner and tea, and even to spend an evening in the parlour now and then, but she could not walk any distance or sit up on a straight chair. There were many days when her back and head were racked with pain, and she could only lie still in her darkened room and endure.

It was a severe trial to Marion, who had never known sickness, and there were times when she found it very hard to be patient, especially when her services seemed so much needed. Henry continued very unwell, and Aunt Eugenia grew more and more feeble all the time.

Betsy did not get up very well from the measles. Her eyes had been greatly affected by the disease, and in her hurry to get back to her beloved music, she had tried them too soon, so that they were now quite useless for reading or work. It must be confessed that under this infliction, Betsy became rather an infliction herself. She practiced the pieces she knew by heart, and went over her scales and exercises till they became a weariness to the flesh.

"There's one thing about it, Betsy," said Marion to her one day when she was lying flat on the floor before the open fire in Marion's room. "Cousin Helen says you are gaining in your fingering all the time."

"Yes, but just think how much I am losing in other ways!" said Betsy, dolefully. "If I had Stanley here to practice duets with, it would be something. I think she might have stayed."

"She couldn't stay any longer, you know. She would have lost her place in the school, and we should not like to have her do that."

"Of course not," said Betsy. "I'm not a selfish monster, I hope."

"Why, no, I hope not, certainly," said Marion, smiling. "I don't think it shows that you are one because you don't want Stannie away. I am sure I miss her enough."

"But isn't it too bad that I have to give up everything so?" said Betsy. "Come, now, Marion, do pity me a little. I'm hungry for some sympathy."

"I pity you very much," said Marion. "It is real hard to have to stop your lessons in the middle just as you are so engaged about them; but, Betsy dear, you haven't been obliged to give up everything, have you? Didn't I hear of your walking over to the run, and riding out with your father to measure the bark, and with Bram to salt the colts up on the hill lot yesterday? I should like to do some of those things pretty well, I think."

"To be sure, you poor old dear! I can run all over as well as ever, and you have to sit or lie here all day. I am a thankless old lobster," exclaimed Betsy, trying hard to find an appropriate epithet. "I ought to go blind entirely for being so unthankful. But, after all, your being laid up don't make it any easier for me, now, does it? Gerty said it ought to be enough for me that I wasn't born blind like Aunt Eugenia, but I couldn't see that her being born blind was any consolation."

"I must say I never do understand that sort of consolation," said Marion. "It makes me think of grandfather's story about the woman who lost her potatoes by the rot. When she was condoled with on the subject, she answered cheerfully,—

"'Yes, minister, but it's a great comfort that all the other folks's potatoes are much worse.'"

"Your grandfather must be lovely, I think," said Betsy. "I suppose he knows all sorts of Scotch stories. I should think you would have made him tell you hundreds of them."

"To tell you the truth, Betsy, I never half appreciated grandfather nor any of my other friends when I lived at home," said Marion sighing. "I was as full as I could be of all sorts of silly notions, and fancied I was very superior because I didn't take an interest in things about me. Oh dear! You don't know how I do want to see grandfather and Aunt Baby again!"

"There! Don't cry," said Betsy, alarmed.

"No, I won't, because I shall make my head ache and be more of a nuisance than I am now. But, Betsy, about your lessons. I don't believe but I might help you, or at least that we might help each other," said Marion, correcting herself. "I could read over the lessons to you—some of them, at least. We could go on with our English history and learn a French lesson every day, and that would be something."

"I should think it was," exclaimed Betsy, jumping up. "But about the Latin, Marie. Don't you hate to stop that? And yet I don't see how we could manage."

"I think I do. We will do our French one day, and the next we will learn some Latin by heart, or take a lesson in the grammar. Don't you know Harry says we are deficient in grammar, like all other girls?" said Marion, smiling as she repeated the remark with which Harry delighted to "aggravate" Betsy.

"Set him up, indeed! But on your sick days?"

"Well, on my sick days I shall have to be sick, I suppose; but they don't come nearly as often as they did."

"And won't it tire you, really? You are not doing it just because I have been making such a fuss or anything?"

"No, indeed; it is quite as much for my amusement as yours. I expect to learn a great deal."

"What a pity you can't go on with your drawing!" said Betsy. "Cousin Helen said you got on better than any pupil she ever had, and it was such a pity—Oh there, now! What have I done? Please don't cry, Marion."

"No, I won't," said Marion, bravely winking away the tears. "I don't see what makes me such a cry-baby."

"It's because you are so weak," said Betsy, with sympathy. "When I was sick, I cried because mother gave Bob an orange and wouldn't let me have any."

"It isn't only that, but—I'll tell you all about it, only you mustn't tell any one," said Marion; "or don't you care about hearing my worries?"

"Of course I do," answered Betsy, flattered by the proposal and seating herself on Marion's footstool.

"Well, I shouldn't mind, only you see I don't get any better, at least very little, and I can't help thinking how dreadful it would be if I should never be any better—if I should be confined to my bed or my chair for ever, like poor Miss Phelps in Rock Bottom, you know."

"Oh, Marion, you mustn't think of anything so dreadful," said Betsy, jumping up and putting her arms round Marion's neck. "I don't wonder you do, though."

"I know I ought not to borrow trouble, and I don't mean to do it," continued Marion; "but when my back aches at night and I can't sleep, or when I am alone a good while, it will come over me. Just think! Never to walk any more for ever!"

"It wouldn't be for ever, you know," whispered Betsy, holding Marion in a very close embrace.

"No, I know that. But twenty, or even ten, years isn't a very pleasant prospect."

"But, Marion, I don't believe there is any danger, do you?"

Marion shook her head:

"I can't see that I walk one bit better than I did a month ago, though I am better other ways. But I don't mean to dwell on it," said Marion, after a little silence and speaking more cheerfully; "only sometimes, you know, I can't help thinking about it, and it seemed as if it would do me good to say it out to somebody."

"Have you said anything to the doctor?" asked Betsy.

"No; I am afraid."

"I would ask him if I were you," said Betsy, with decision; "I'd know just what he thought about it. I dare say he would tell you it wasn't half so bad; and anyhow, I would know the truth."

"I believe you are right," said Marion. "I mean to ask him the next time he comes. There's the dinner-bell. Stay and have some with me. I am not going out to the table to-day, because all the Weilands are here, and I don't feel like facing company and being questioned by those girls. Please, mother, can't Betsy dine with me to-day?"

"To be sure," answered Mrs. Van Alstine. "I was going to propose Henry, who does not want to face company, either, but I can as well provide for three as two. I will send in the little table, and, Betsy, you must wait on Marion."

The small dinner-party was more cheerful than the large one, at least so the "middle boys" declared when they "burst in on the secret revellers," as Bram said.

"Lucky folks!" grumbled Frank, depositing himself at full length on Betsy's late couch, the hearth-rug. "I say, Marion, is there any tea left in that pot?"

"Plenty, you old tea-drinker. Give them some, Betsy."

"I declare, it is worth while to be sick, isn't it, Bram?" said Frank, sitting up to take his cup of tea.

"Betsy isn't sick; she is an impostor out and out; and I more than half suspect Harry of shamming to escape the Miss Weilands. Such fine young ladies!"

"Oh dear, yes! And how could we bear to live so out of the world? And she should die in a week, she knew she should," said Frank, in a lackadaisical tone; "she didn't see how people endured existence out of the city. Didn't Rob Roy take her down?"

"What did he do? Something dreadful, I dare say."

"Not a bit. But you know his way of cogitating over a matter and bringing it out after every one else has finished. So after mother had successfully turned the conversation to wide skirts or narrow, and it was sailing along prosperously, out comes the McGregor:

"'Miss Weiland, how did you endure existence when you lived at Butternut Run? Because you did live there ever so long.'"

"Good!" exclaimed Betsy. "What did she say?"

"Oh, she pretended not to hear, and father gave Rob a pinch. The Weilands used to be nice people before they got above their circumstances."

"What do you mean?" asked Marion.

"Oh, you don't know the story. Well, there was a certain lady over in Ivanhoe who was famous for her good cooking, and, above all, for her pumpkin pies. One day her husband 'struck ile' and made a great fortune. Some time afterward mother asked her for a recipe for the said pies.

"'Oh,' said Mrs. Derrick—that wasn't her name, though—with great majesty, 'since we got above our circumstances, we don't make any more such common pies.'"

"Well, it is a great pity of the Weilands," said Harry. "They used to be nice, jolly plain people, and now they are neither one thing nor another. I don't think the girls are quite as unbearable as Tom, though. Think of his asking me if any gentlemen were to be found at Princeton! He had understood the men were mostly farmers' sons, quite from the masses."

"And now, young men and maidens, you will please vacate Marion's room and leave her to her nap," said Mrs. Andrews, coming in to look after the invalid. "I concluded I should find you here. Your father says Marion's room is a great convenience in one way. When he wants a boy, he knows just where to lay his hand on him."

Heiress of McGregor.

A centre of attraction.

"That shows how agreeable Marion is."

"Tell Cousin Helen what we were talking about, Betsy," said Marion as Bram wheeled her chair round and helped her on the bed. "I mean about the lessons."

"I will; and I say, Marion."

"You what?" said Cousin Helen, whose mission it was to keep Betsy from becoming altogether a boy in manners.

"No, I don't say, then; but, Marion," and Betsy bent over the bed and whispered, "I'll call you 'aunt' now if you want me."

"Nonsense!" answered Marion, pushing her away. "I am not quite such a goose now, I hope."

It was a certain fact that Marion's room was becoming a centre of attraction. The large south parlour, which joined Mrs. Van Alstine's room, had been made into a bedroom for her, to the amazement of Gerty, who wondered how Mother Van Alstine could think of such a thing. But Mrs. Van Alstine answered quietly that one parlour and dining-room answered very well, and that Marion could not go up and down stairs. Here she had her bed and dressing-bureau, her reclining-chair, and other special possessions. Hither came the middle boys with new specimens of fish, flesh, and fowl, and the Scotchman with lessons to learn, stories to read, and carving to execute. Here Mr. Van Alstine was pretty sure to stop before he went out after dinner, and here he often read his paper after tea. If Marion had still coveted "influence" as much as she had done at one time, she might have been pleased with the thought that she was at last in a fair way to obtain it.

But Marion had done with such dreams for the present. During her long days of pain and weakness, when she could bear neither reading nor conversation, she had gone over her own life from as far back as she could remember, and the retrospect had not been agreeable. Groundless pride, self-adulation, wasted opportunities, ingratitude,—she saw these things in their true colours at last. She was grieved and wearied and at times almost crushed by the weight of her sins. The remembrance was grievous to her, the burden intolerable. At times, guided by the gentle counsel of Harry or Bram's earnest sympathy, she could lay the burden where it belonged. At others she was ready to despair and to think that she should never be good for anything.

"We are none of us good for anything, except as it pleases our Master to make use of us," said Harry one day. "We must make up our minds to that, and then be thankful if he lets us do ever so little."

"But wasted time can never come back, and I may never have the chance to do what I might have done at home."

"We can all say that; but, Marie, I would not waste time or strength in vain regrets. Try to do the thing that comes to be done now, whether great or small, and let the dead past bury its dead."

"I don't know that I shall ever have anything to do again," said Marion.

"Never fear for that. It is a good deal to lie here patiently as you do—quite enough for the present, I think. And other work will come as you are able to meet it. People are never left without work, if only they are willing to do little things."

One of the little things had come to Marion in the way of helping Betsy with her lessons. (Elizabeth Margaretta's everyday name was properly Bessy, but somehow or other, neither that nor Lizzy nor Betty seemed to answer the purpose. As she herself said, Betsy was the only name that would stick.) The arrangement was found to work very well with a little of Cousin Helen's supervision and care to keep Marion from being overworked in Betsy's zeal to get on. For as was to be expected, Betsy was not always perfectly reasonable in her requirements, and did not know when to stop.

"She had just heard Rob's parsing, and I don't see why she couldn't hear mine," she grumbled one day when Cousin Helen quietly checked her.

"She has just walked ten miles; why can't she just as well walk ten more?" said Cousin Helen. "What kind of logic is that, Betsy? The fact that she has just heard Rob is reason enough why she shouldn't hear you. Shall I quote to you ancient proverbs about the last drop and the last feather?"

"Well, I'm sure I don't want to be the last feather in the bucket that breaks the camel's back," said Betsy, recovering her good-humour, which was seldom mislaid long at a time. "Marion ought to tell me when she is beginning to feel tired."

"You must not leave that to her, but watch for yourself," said Cousin Helen. "Invalids don't like to be or seem ungracious, and for that reason they often overtask themselves and suffer for it afterward."

"I'm sure I hope Marion won't," said Betsy, in alarm. "I'm afraid she was too tired yesterday, and that was what made her head ache. Do you know when Mamma Van Alstine expects an answer to her letters?"

"She heard from the Campbells yesterday, and I believe she expects an answer from Holford to-day," answered Cousin Helen. "Doctor Campbell will come if the rest do, and he has written to his brother to urge him to arrange matters."

"There comes Rob with the mail this minute," exclaimed Betsy. "Can't I run down and get the letters?"

"Yes, do so, and bring them to the dining-room if there are any. You know Marion is not to know anything till the matter is all settled. Suspense would not be very good for her just now."

"Are you rested, Marie? Have you had a good nap?" asked Betsy, coming in on tiptoe. She had begged and obtained the privilege of being the messenger of good news to Marion.

"Oh yes, charming," answered Marion, rubbing her eyes. "I have had such a nice dream about Holford and grandfather."

"Wouldn't you like to see him."

"Yes, indeed," said Marion; "nobody knows how much I want to see him and Aunt Baby and Uncle Alick."

"Just suppose—only suppose—they could come here to keep Thanksgiving."

"It would be too lovely for anything," said Marion; "but I don't suppose that is to be thought of for a moment."

"Why not?" asked Betsy.

"Oh, because grandfather is so old and uncle and aunt could not leave the farm; and oh, there are many reasons."

"Everything can be brought together except mountains," said Betsy, quoting a French proverb. "Just suppose—now, only just suppose—that they were really coming."

"Betsy, you don't mean it?"

"Yes, I do. Father wrote to Doctor Campbell some time ago and begged him to try to persuade your other uncle, and somehow they have arranged it. And Doctor and Mrs. Campbell are coming on Saturday, and the rest on Monday. And your grandfather and Miss Barbara will stay and make a good long visit, and so will Doctor and Mrs. Campbell, but the other uncle can only stay a week, because of the farm, you know."

"But what will become of the farm and the cows and things?" asked Marion, bewildered.

"I don't know. They have arranged somehow—got some man and his wife to stay in the house, I believe."

"Donald Campbell, I dare say. But I don't know how to believe anything so perfectly delightful. I never dreamed of such a thing."

"I have known it all along," said Betsy. "But mother thought we had better not tell you anything till we were sure, so I didn't say a word."

"And that is the incredible part of it," said Bram, who had slipped in to enjoy Marion's surprise—"that Betsy should know anything and not tell it. One can believe anything after that."

"Now, Bram, you sha'n't tease her," said Marion, pulling Betsy down to her on the bed.

A year before she would have resented being kept out of the secret and treated like a child, as she would have said. Now she appreciated the kindness which had shielded her from suspense and possible disappointment.

"Oh, I don't mind them; they are only boys," said Betsy, with an air of magnificent disdain.

"Only boys! Just hear her!"

"Betsy always says that," said Rob, rather aggrieved. "I don't see why boys are not just as good as girls; and if they are not, they can't help it."

"Of course they can't; it's their misfortune, not their fault," returned aggravating Betsy.

"Elizabeth Margaret, if you don't behave, I shall feel it my duty, in a spirit of brotherly love, to come and pull your ears," said Bram, solemnly.

"You won't do anything of the kind," returned Marion. "You young gentlemen will please vacate the room immediately and let me get up and get ready for tea, and then you may return and attend me to the festive board if you like. I mean to go to supper."

"How nice Marion is nowadays!" said Rob to Bram in the hall. "She isn't a bit as she was when she first came here. Do you think it was falling into the old hemlock that did it?"

"Did it? Did what, Rob Roy?"

"Made her so nice."

"Well, no, not altogether that. Suppose you try it on the one Jem cut down yesterday."

"But that is not down a bank, as Marion's was," objected Rob, whose literal way of taking everything was a continual source of good-natured amusement to his brothers and cousins. "Do you really think it was that, Bram?"

"No, Robin, I don't think the fall had very much to do with it," answered Bram, more seriously. "I think Marion sees now that she was wrong in some things, and so she is trying to do better. Perhaps her accident helped by giving her time to think."

"It is very nice, her being so good-natured and having her room to whittle in, and all," observed Rob Roy, after another pause of consideration; "but I wish she could run about again."

Saturday and Monday came and brought the expected guests. Grandfather seemed to Marion's eyes to have grown somewhat older and to stoop a little. He was an object of instant and intense admiration to all the small fry, especially to solemn little Dotty Overbeck, who studied him on all sides, and then went and whispered to his mother:

"May we call him grandfather, mamma?"

"To be sure you may, my bonny man," said Hector McGregor, overhearing the whisper; "I shall be proud of such a family of fine lads and lasses."

"And are the aunts and uncles ours too?" pursued Dotty, who liked to have everything explained.

"You may call them so, my dear."

Gerty and Asahel had promised to spend Thanksgiving with some of Gerty's friends. Their absence was borne with resignation. Everybody was sorry to miss Asahel, but Gerty was not a pleasant element in the family party, and in fact was apt to be the "gravel in the pudding," as grandfather would have said.

All the rest agreed admirably. The Campbells and Mrs. Andrews met like old friends, for she had worked in Persia, while the Campbells had been in Syria and Turkey. They had once spent a few hours together in Constantinople and knew many of the same people. Any one who has witnessed a similar meeting can guess at the kind of conversation which took place.

Doctor Campbell was at once claimed as their own special property by the middle boys, introduced to their precious collections of plants, stones, and woods, and taken into counsel as to the best method of arrangement. The doctor liked nothing better, and not only entered into the subject zealously, but contributed some valuable specimens to the cabinet and promised more.

For a while Aunt Baby could think of nothing but her thin, pale-faced, languid darling, so changed from the bright, rosy girl she had sent away six months before. The rest of the family thought Marion looked much better, as indeed she was, but to Aunt Baby's eyes she seemed passing rapidly away to the silent land.

"But she really is a great deal better, Baby," said Eiley, beginning to feel as if she had not been anxious enough about Marion. "She comes to tea every day now, and often to dinner, and she is able to do a great deal more than she was. If you had seen her a month ago, you would appreciate the difference."

But Aunt Baby had not seen her a month ago, and could hardly think that Marion was able to have all those great boys and that bouncing lass Betsy in and out of her room all day long. She seemed to feel Betsy's red cheeks an affront by the side of Marion's pale ones and to resent the activity of her motions, whilst Marion was confined to a cautious progress from her room to the dining-room or from one sofa to another.

Thanksgiving was always a great day at the valley. The week before, all the turkeys in the neighbourhood were bought up by Van Alstine & Overbeck. A carload, more or less, of raisins, apples, and canned peaches came up from New York, and the morning before the feast there was a solemn distribution to all the factory, saw-mill, and farm hands of all these good things. The peaches were always greeted with great enthusiasm, for, whatever else grew in Hemlock Valley, peaches obstinately refused to flourish.

"They were just like real, fresh peaches," said the people; and I suppose they thought so.

Marion was not able to attend the distribution, as she had hoped, but she heard all the particulars from the boys. She was keeping herself very quiet that she might be able to go to dinner next day.

On Thanksgiving morning a short service was held in the chapel, which everybody attended. According to custom, Mr. Van Alstine made a short address recounting the principal events of the past year in the little settlement. Henry played the harmonium, and there was some excellent singing, and then a general handshaking all round.

Then everybody went to dinner, and had, as Frank said, as good a time as they knew how. Twenty persons sat down to dinner in the long dining-room, all members of one family save Doctor and Mrs. Fenn, whose two soldier-boys were away, one in New Mexico, the other in Montana.

The dinner was nice enough to put an end to all Aunt Baby's long-cherished misgivings as to Eiley's housekeeping qualifications. The feast indeed seemed perilously extravagant to her Scotch-New England notions of thrift and economy. There was so much silver and glass and china and napery, all of the best, and such rich cakes and puddings and preserved fruits and jugs of solid cream, that she confided to Christian that she hoped they were not living beyond their means.

"Oh, I don't believe they are," said Christian, who had seen entertainments on a good deal larger scale than her sister. "I don't believe Mr. Van Alstine is the man to go beyond his means."

Marion was able to sit up to dinner, and afterward to lie back in her reclining-chair in the drawing-room, listening now to the conversation between the two doctors, now to Aunt Baby's home gossip about the farm and the village and old friends and schoolmates, and again to her grandfather telling Scotch stories to the children.

"It has been a lovely Thanksgiving," said Betsy when the party broke up; "hasn't it, Marion?"

And Aunt Baby, listening for the answer, was glad to hear Marion say, with a heartiness which there was no mistaking,—

"Yes, indeed; I think it has been the pleasantest Thanksgiving I ever spent in my life."

CHAPTER XIX.

WINTER IN THE VALLEY.

"I SEE no reason why you should not get quite well, but you must have patience and be particularly careful not to try your strength or to strain yourself in any way."

Such was Doctor Campbell's verdict on Marion's case after a long consultation with Doctor Fenn and a particular examination of the patient.

"And about these lessons, now?" said Aunt Baby, who always entertained a lurking suspicion of lessons as inimical to the health of children in general. "Don't you think Marion is doing rather too much head-work?"

"What does Marion think?"

"I don't think it hurts me," said Marion, "not unless I work too long."

"And do you often work too long?"

"Sometimes," Marion admitted. "Betsy is so anxious to get on and I am so interested that I forget."

"But you must not forget," said the doctor. "If you do, I shall forbid them altogether."

"Oh, don't, please, Doctor Fenn," pleaded Marion. "The days seem so long and tiresome when I have nothing to do but to think how uncomfortable I am, and it is such a comfort to know that I am getting on in my studies."

"But if it hurts you, Marie dear," said Aunt Baby, anxiously. "What think you, Duncan?"

"I am inclined to think the lessons are rather beneficial than otherwise," said Doctor Campbell, "always provided they are not carried too far. My own opinion is that sick people often suffer for the want of interests outside of themselves."

"I agree with you there," said Doctor Fenn. "I have two patients in the village this minute with whom I can do nothing, and I believe they might both be cured if they could be brought to take a hearty interest in some object outside of their own cases and their own cellars and pantries."

"Then you think I may go on with my lessons?" asked Marion.

"In moderation," answered the doctor. "But you must promise to work by the clock, and leave off at the moment, whether you are tired or not. I shall talk to Master Betty myself."

The doctor had come across the name of "Master Betty" in his reading, and delighted in teasing Elizabeth Margaretta by applying it to her.

"Now, tell me really and truly, my dear, do you like these lessons, or do you only work at them for the sake of that tall lass of Mrs. Overbeck's?" asked Aunt Baby when she and Marion were alone together. It was hard for her, remembering Marion's past school-days, to think that she took pleasure in lessons for their own sake.

"Indeed, aunty, I do," answered Marion. "I like the lessons themselves, and I like to help Betsy; and besides, I have wasted so much time that I don't want to lose any more. Oh, Aunt Baby, if I had my life to live over again, how different it should be!"

"We may all say that, my lamb."

"But every one is not so silly as I was," said Marion, who was longing to make a clean breast of it. "Aunt Baby, do you know I used to think, when I was at home, that the reason I did not get on any better was because I was so superior to everybody about me?"

"I had a good guess at it," said Aunt Baby, smiling. "Girls are not such absolute mysteries to their elders as they are fain to believe. I dare say it has been good for you to live more with young people of your own age."

"And don't you think they are nice boys, Aunt Baby?"

"Indeed I do, my dear. A finer or better managed set of lads I never saw together, and your grandfather says the same. And Betsy is a nice lass too, I must allow, though a thought—well, I'll not say just masculine, but boyish."

"You see she has always lived with boys," said Marion. "Cousin Helen says it is the object of her life to make a girl of Betsy. But she isn't coarse, Aunt Baby, not really, nor the boys, either. They are all good, but I think Bram is the best, if there is any best."

"It is very good in you to say so, and he the cause of your misfortune," said Aunt Baby.

"Bram the cause of my misfortune?" said Marion, raising herself up. "Why, Aunt Barbara, what do you mean? Bram had nothing to do with it. Nobody was to blame, only the rains which had loosened the ground."

"Well, there! Don't excite yourself, child. It was Gerty that told me," said Aunt Baby. "She said that it was all caused by Bram's carelessness and giddiness, and—what grieved me most of all—on a Sabbath evening."

"Oh, Gerty! I forgot she had been over," said Marion, sinking back, as if the matter were explained. "I dare say she told you a fine story."

"Tell me yourself how it was, then."

Marion repeated the story, and Aunt Baby was satisfied.

"It was a very different tale she told me. I thought her a nice young woman; but if that is her sort, the less we have to do with her, the better."

"Oh, well, Gerty is Gerty, and we all know her," said Marion. "I suppose there must needs be one contrary feather. I was the contrary feather when I was at home, wasn't I, Aunt Baby?"

"Well, I do not deny but you were a bit trying at times, but you were always my own darling, for all."

"That was because you were so good yourself. But now tell me about the girls. Row does Therese get on?"

"Very finely, I hear. Miss Oliver says she is as good a pupil as she has ever had in the school, and she is a great comfort to the old lady."

"I dare say. I wonder if Therese ever regrets that she did not go with Mrs. Tremaine?"

"Very likely she may think of it sometimes—it would hardly be human nature not to do so—but I don't believe she ever regrets it. I think, too, that Therese has some new idea in her head which reconciles her to the change in her plans. She and Aunt Christian have had a great many long talks together. If old Madame Duval is taken away, I should not wonder if Therese goes back with them."

"That ought to have been my part," said Marion, with a sigh. "But there is no use in thinking of it now. And how does Lizzy Gates flourish? She has only written to me once since I came away."

"She is much the same Lizzy, only I think she improves in her manners. She is not so headlong as she was. And you must know that Eliza Bridgeman has left Miss Wilkins."

"Oh, I am so glad! I always believed Miss Wilkins used her horribly."

"Indeed she did. Eliza got sick at last—so sick that the old woman was scared and called in Doctor Gates, and by questioning and examination, he got at the truth. Such overwork and under-feeding! The poor thing fairly suffered from cold and hunger."

"Didn't the doctor fly out? I should like to have heard him."

"Indeed he did, then, especially when Miss Wilkins tried to buy his silence. He went straight to the poor-master and had Eliza taken away and her indenture cancelled, and there was such an excitement that Miss Wilkins had to leave town for a while."

"And must you really go home next week?" asked Marion.

"I think so, my dear. You see it is very hard for Uncle Alick to be there alone, or at least with nobody but Donald and his wife, and I can see that grandfather is growing impatient, though he has enjoyed his visit very much. We have been here two weeks already."

"I am afraid you will have a hard, dull winter," said Marion; "I think you should have some one to help you."

"I was thinking of taking that same Eliza Bridgeman. The poor thing has no home, and she needs some one to care for her."

The next week grandfather and Aunt Baby went home, greatly regretted by all the children. Doctor and Mrs. Campbell were to stay some time longer. Christian was glad of rest and quiet after all the visiting she had gone through, and the doctor wished to write up his book and to observe Marion's case more closely. He was established in Marion's former room, and shut himself up for several hours daily, walking and riding with the boys and girls the rest of the time.

Betsy's eyesight improved so far that she was able to take up her music again in moderation. She still did her Latin and French with Marion, however, and they were both gainers by the arrangement. As Marion's health improved so that she could sit up, she began to work at her drawing a little, and to find great pleasure in it. The little ones, among whom Betsy classed Hector and Rob, to the great indignation of the clansmen, were regularly in school five hours a day. Frank began reading medicine with Doctor Duncan, and Bram worked diligently at Greek with Harry, who was not to go back to college till spring.

Mrs. Van Alstine and Mrs. Overbeck kept house, sewed, and took care of their poorer neighbours for work, and embroidered wonderful and gorgeous camp-chairs for diversion, and all seemed quietly settled for the winter.

But nothing ever is settled in this world. Just after the Christmas holidays, Aunt Eugenia was found dead in her chair. She had been as well as usual. Marion had been with her all the morning, and only left her for half an hour, to find on her return that the old lady was no longer there.

It was a very severe day when she was buried. Henry took cold, and was so much worse that both the doctors advised his removal to a warmer climate with all speed. There was a good deal of talk as to who should go with him, but he was evidently so desirous of having his mother that the matter was so arranged. Mr. Van Alstine was to go as far as New York and see the travellers on the steamer; but when all was settled, Mr. Overbeck put in another proposal. It was a great while since Mr. Van Alstine had taken a holiday; why should not that gentleman do so now, when he could be spared so much better than in summer? So it was decided after another day's consideration, and the travellers departed leaving Mrs. Andrews to keep house, with the help of Aunt Christian and Marion.

"We shall have a dreadful dull time, with father and mother and Harry all gone," said Hector the first evening that the diminished family were collected in the drawing-room.

"It will be perfectly horrid," added Rob, who always echoed Hector.

"It will be neither dreadful nor horrid, my countrymen," said Uncle Duncan; "we are going, on the contrary, to have a very agreeable and entertaining time."

"I should like to know how," said Rob, who was the baby and a good deal inclined to resent his mother's absence as a personal injury to himself.

"Well, in the first place, we are going to put on an extra pound or two of steam in all our lessons."

"Rob is going to learn to spell in words of two syllables," said Frank, in allusion to Robin's orthographical weakness.

"And Frank is going to learn to shut the doors after him," retorted Rob Roy.

"Exactly; and we are all going to put our best foot foremost in everything. Then we 'men-folks,' as Maggy calls us, are going to take numerous long walks in various directions. Then we are going to have some lectures in the school-house, illustrated with my new magic-lantern, so soon as Cousin Helen and Marion have finished painting the slides, in which lectures I propose to give an account of my travels and magnify my own doings as much as possible, as Gerty says all missionaries do, you know."

"Good!" said all the boys together.

And Frank added, "I'm afraid the school-house won't hold the people, though."

"Then we'll make a lecture-room of the new horse-barn," said Bram. "Go on, Uncle Duncan. What else?"

"What else? Why, we are to read story-books, and play all the games that ever were heard of, and crack bushels of walnuts and butternuts, and roast and boil kettlefuls of chestnuts."

"And make molasses candy and caramels and cornballs," said Rob, eagerly.

"Yes, if Maggy will let us; and to conclude, we are all to be as amiable and good-natured and cheerful as we know how. Seriously, my young folks, don't let us sit down deliberately to have a doleful time, but, on the contrary, make up our minds to do the very best we can for ourselves and each other."

"And by way of making a beginning, let Rob ask James to crack a panful of butternuts," said Mrs. Andrews.

The doctor's programme was pretty well carried out. Mrs. Andrews and Marion painted the slides for the magic-lantern, which was exhibited with great success, both in the valley, at Ivanhoe, and at Rock Bottom, rather to the scandal of Gerty, who wondered Doctor Campbell could condescend to make himself a showman and amuse children. But Doctor Campbell was consoled for the sacrifice of his dignity, if indeed he needed any consolation, by the fact that two flourishing missionary societies were formed, one at Ivanhoe, the other at Rock Bottom.

One day Marion proposed that they should also get up one at Hemlock Valley.

"But who would be members?" asked Bram, to whom, as usual, she first confided her scheme. "There would be nobody but ourselves."

"Well, we make up a pretty good number—eight of us here and five at Amity's. If we each give a cent a week there is—Thirteen times fifty-two is—"

"Six dollars and seventy-six cents."

"Then there are the Barretts—I think they would join in—and old Mr. and Mrs. Hollenbeck, and Chris and his wife and their children. Oh yes; you'd see we should have quite a good many members to start with, and more would come in. Anyhow, let's talk to Aunt Christian about it when we get her alone. We won't say anything to the others at first."

"You feel very differently about missions from what you did when you first came here, don't you?" said Bram, after a little silence, in which he worked diligently at his wood carving, while Marion elaborated the trappings of a magnificent camel, a design for one of the new slides which she was constantly adding to the famous lantern. "Don't you remember how I used to tease you asking you questions about what you had heard from your aunt? You used to be downright vexed at me."

"Because I had nothing to tell," returned Marion.

"But I don't see how you could help it, living with them as you did."

"You would if you knew how silly I was in those days."

"I say! Don't call my sister silly, if you please."

"Well, I was silly—a self-conceited, ridiculous simpleton," persisted Marion, vehemently dabbling her brush in the water-glass. "Bram, I would not tell you for anything how I used to spend hours and hours in dreaming of the great things I would do, and how I would be admired and looked up to. Oh, it just makes me provoked enough to box my own ears."

"That's a very unchristian frame of mind."

"Never did any one get such a taking down as I did after I came here," continued Marion. "I thought I was going to be so good and so condescending, and help you in your lessons, and mother in her housekeeping."

"Well, you had never seen us, and of course you couldn't tell what we were like," said Bram. "I don't see anything so bad in that. Look at my elephant; isn't he fine?"

"Awe inspiring—no less," replied Marion. "I think he looks a good deal like old James in the face. What is he for?"

"Dot's birthday. You know he is in love with elephants ever since he rode on one in New York, so Frank and I mean to construct a team for him. I wish you and Betsy would put your heads together and make some—What do you call the fellows that ride upon them?"

"Mahouts. We'll see what can be done. The worst of it is that I keep finding myself falling back into the old ways again all the time," continued Marion, reverting to her first subject.

"Everybody does that, I suppose," said Bram.

"Do you really think so?" asked Marion, doubtfully.

"I really do. I remember once talking to old Father Hollenbeck about that very thing, and he said to me,—

"'My son, I should have considerable doubt of the spiritual condition of anybody who never had any battles to fight. I should be afraid that he was either in league with the enemy or asleep on his post.'"

"But if our inclinations were all right?"

"Then we should be ready for heaven, I fancy. How should we take up the cross in that case? We are to deny ourselves and take up the cross daily, you know. How are elephants' toes? Do they show in front?"

This important point being settled, Marion went on:

"It always seems to me as if the emphasis in that sentence ought to be on the other word: 'Deny himself.' That is the hard saying for me. I have always lived so to and for myself."

"I am sure you don't now; you look out for everybody. I don't know what we should do without you this winter."

"Well, I do try not to be selfish, but I'm afraid that very often when I think I am doing for others, it is only self-seeking at the bottom."

"I'll tell you what, Marie: I think it is possible to be self-seeking in that very way," said Bram, shrewdly. "I mean in thinking too much about one's own spiritual state. Don't you know how Uncle Duncan scolded Harry for getting into the habit of feeling his pulse and watching his breathing? He said it was the very worst thing for him."

"But don't you believe in self-examination?"

"Yes, at proper times. But I don't believe in taking every thought and action to pieces and looking at it through a magnifying-glass; as I read in one of Uncle Duncan's books the other day:

"'Sanctify all thy doings with a general good intention, and there leave them.'

"See how bright the sun has come out! Don't you want to wrap yourself up and let me take you down to the store and over to Abner Angel's? I have an errand over there, and it is just a nice ride."

CHAPTER XX.

ROCK BOTTOM.

THE missionary society was successful. The scheme was propounded to the teachers first, and met with only as much opposition as brought out Doctor Campbell in a sermon, in which he brought up one after another all the ordinary objections to missionary work and disposed of them in a very satisfactory manner. The children entered into the matter with enthusiasm, and, so far from the general interests of the school suffering, they evidently gained.

Marion's health continued very delicate all through the cold weather; but when spring came on, she seemed to take a sudden start, and improved very rapidly. She gained strength and flesh, suffered less pain, and was able to go about the house and to walk out. Nobody who has not tried it knows the expansion of heart felt by an invalid who first gets out in the spring after a winter's long confinement.

Marion thought nothing could ever have been so beautiful as the starting leaves, the bunches of hepaticas, spring beauties, and trailing arbutus which the boys brought her. She got herself well laughed at for declaring that there were no ferns in Holford, or if there were, they did not come up with such dear little fuzzy, curly heads.

"Well, all I can say is that I must have got a new pair of eyes, then, for I am sure I never noticed them," said Marion, defending herself good-humouredly.

"'There fell from his eyes as it had been scales,'" quoted Uncle Duncan, in a low voice.

"But didn't you have any botany classes in school?" asked Frank, in whose mind ignorance of botany implied ignorance of all things worth knowing in this world.

"Oh yes; Miss Oliver and some of the older girls used to make great times over flowers, and so on. But somehow I never cared for botany; it seemed to me all hard words. The truth is, I don't think I paid any more attention to any of my lessons than I could help in those days."

The last of April brought home the travellers. Harry was quite himself again, and both Mr. and Mrs. Van Alstine much benefited by the long rest and freedom from care. It was very delightful to have the whole family at home once more, but it did not last long.

Gerty claimed Marion's promise to come and make her a long visit. She promised to take every care of her, and urged, with some show of reason, that the change of air and scene would be very good for Marion after her long confinement.

"I hate to have you go, Marion," said Bram, who was still Marion's special friend among the boys. "Honestly, now, do you like it yourself?"

"Honestly, Bram, I am not in love with it."

"Then why do you go?"

"That is a wise question, Master Abraham. Because I promised."

"Well, that was before you were sick."

"I know that, but I am well now, or nearly so. And besides, Gerty wants me, and I can't help feeling sorry for her. I don't believe, from what Mrs. Landon says, that she has much society."

Mrs. Landon was the minister's wife in Rock Bottom, who had been over to call upon Marion.

"It is her own fault, then, for there are plenty of nice people in Rock Bottom."

"And besides, Bram, as I said before, a promise is a promise, and you know very well you wouldn't think it right for me to break mine; now, would you?"

"Well, no, I suppose not," answered Bram, fairly pushed to the wall. "Anyhow, you needn't stay very long."

"No; I don't propose to live there, as I did once. Bram, do you remember our talking about that the night I fell over the cliff? What a goose I was!"

"I don't believe you will 'influence' Gerty—not much," said Bram. "She isn't that kind."

"I don't think I shall try. I haven't forgotten what you said about letting our light shine steadily, instead of holding it up and waving it about."

"But you won't stay long?" persisted Bram.

"No longer than I must in decency."

And with that Bram was obliged to be content.

He drove Marion over to Rock Bottom in the little carriage, taking a somewhat roundabout road to show her certain favourite points of view which she had not yet seen, and arrived at Rock Bottom about six in the evening.

It was a very pretty little village, built just where a small stream came down from the hills and ran across a narrow, fertile plain to the river. The Susquehanna here broke into a rapid, adding much to the beauty, but not greatly to the healthfulness, of the place, for it is a fact that rapids in such great rivers are great promoters of agues.

Asahel's house was a very good one, large and roomy, though old-fashioned, with a hipped roof and dormer windows, and a heavy, wide portico at the front. The house stood back from the street, and was shaded by some large and beautiful trees.

"What a pretty place!" said Marion.

"Isn't it? Father bought it of old General Van Deusen's heirs on purpose for Asahel, but Gerty doesn't like it because it is so old-fashioned. She wanted father to build it all over and make a Mansard roof."

"Horrid!" said Marion, regarding with an artistic eye the deep angles and shadows on the old mossy roof.

"It was a great deal prettier before it was altered—the nicest old deep-red brick colour—but Gerty never liked it, so father painted it for her."

"How good he is to her! I don't believe I would have done it."

"Well, you see, he has to oppose her so many times that I think he makes it a principle to please her if he can. Here she comes now. Well, Gerty, here we are, you see."

"Yes, I see we are here," answered Gerty, coming forward to meet her guests. "I expected you this morning, Marion. Pray how long have you been on the road?"

"Only since two o'clock," answered Marion. "Bram took me round to show me the view from Tom's Hill and the big hollow. I hope you haven't waited for us?"

"The clock struck six as we came by the church," said Bram. "There's your bag, Marion, and your other things, and the trunk will be over before long. I'll put up the horse, Gerty, and then go over and meet Asahel if he hasn't come."

"Really, that is cool in Bram. I think he might wait for an invitation before he quarters himself on me in such an unceremonious fashion. But come, Marion, and take off your bonnet. I am sure you must be very tired."

"I am rather tired," Marion admitted. "It is the longest ride I have taken yet, but I enjoyed every bit of it."

"It was very inconsiderate on the part of Bram. Hadn't you better have your tea up here? I can send it as well as not. Just put on your wrapper and lie down, and Mary shall bring you a nice supper."

"Oh dear, no!" replied Marion, laughing at the idea. "I am above all that now, I assure you, and I shall enjoy my supper a great deal more down-stairs. Only let me wash my face and brush my hair, and I shall be all right."

"But I am sure you would enjoy your supper more if you had it quietly on the bed. I think it is a real luxury when one is tired," persisted Gertrude. "Don't you think so?"

"No, I can't say I do," replied Marion, completing her preparations in a hurry to put an end to the discussion. "I used to once, I believe, but I have eaten so many meals on the bed this winter that I think in future I shall prefer to take them while walking, like some Eastern monks that Uncle Duncan was telling us about. I am ready, Gerty, I believe."

Gerty looked dissatisfied, but she could not well say any more, and they went down-stairs, to find Asahel and Bram waiting for them in the parlour.

The room was more handsomely furnished than that at Hemlock Valley, but Marion thought it was not so pleasant or homelike in its aspect. She missed the tables made for use, the books meant to be read, and not looked at, the working materials and newspapers, all signs of pleasant occupations. The only table in Gerty's parlour was a marble one ingeniously contrived to be of no use whatever, and all the books visible were decorously set up in rows on the bottom of the what-not.

Asahel greeted Marion warmly. He was the handsomest of all the handsome family, but his face had a worn, patient look which belonged to none of the others.

"I tried to have Marion stay up-stairs, but she thought she must come down to show that she was not entirely overcome with her long ride," said Gerty.

"Are you so very tired, Marie?" asked Bram, anxiously.

"Oh no," answered Marion, gayly; "it is only Gerty's extra care for me. I don't think I am more tired than a night's rest will cure."

"And in that uneasy little buggy, with that fidgety, hard-pulling pony," continued Gerty; "but I suppose Father Van Alstine would not spare any of the other horses. Well, here is Jenny to say that tea is ready. Put on another plate, Jenny. Mr. Van Alstine's brother will stay to tea."

"To tea!" said Asahel. "You don't mean to go back to-night, Bram?"

"No," answered Bram, quietly. "I can't possibly go back to-night, but I can go down to the parsonage if my stay here is an inconvenience to Gerty. I dare say Tom Landon will make room for me."

"You will do nothing of the sort," said Gerty. "Don't be so dreadfully touchy, Bram. I thought you had got over that."

Bram made no answer.

Gerty led the way to the supper-room, and having made everybody thoroughly uncomfortable, laid herself out to be as amiable and gracious as she knew how to be.

"What time shall you go to-morrow, Bram?" asked Marion, taking advantage of a minute or two when she had him to herself.

"As early as I can conveniently get away. I wish you were going back with me. Hadn't you better?"

"Oh no; I must make my visit out. But you must all write and come over and see me when you can. I dare say I shall be dreadfully homesick. Bram, do you think Asahel looks well?"

"Not a bit. He's being worried out of his life about this iron business, I know. She never gives up any notion she once takes into her head."

"You won't go before breakfast?"

"Oh no; I have no notion of being driven that way. Besides, she doesn't mean half of it. It is only that she has fallen into that provoking way of talking. I hope you won't be sick, that's all. Why didn't you tell me you were growing tired?"

"But I am not so very tired. It is all nonsense. I shall be all right in the morning."

Gerty herself took Marion up to her room, and was hospitably anxious about her accommodation:

"I hope you will find everything comfortable here. This room was all furnished new this spring. I don't pretend to be so very literary or accomplished as some people, but I do hope I am a good housekeeper. You see the windows all have mosquito-netting nailed over the outside. I tried to make Mother Van Alstine do that, but I never could. I can't bear to have my house overrun with flies."

"Mother always has frames to put in the windows," said Marion.

"Oh yes, I know, but some one is sure to forget; and then there are the flies. I saw as many as half a dozen the last time I was at mother's, early as it is. Don't you think this furniture is in better taste than that Father Van Alstine bought in New York last year?"

"It is very pretty," said Marion.

"Oh, I see you mean to be non-committal; perhaps that is the best way, situated as you are. You can't be too careful. I found that out, I assure you. Do you think this bed will be soft enough for you? It has the best Tucker springs, but I can get you a feather bed."

"I have slept on a spring mattress all winter," said Marion.

"Oh, but I assure you Tucker springs are considered much more agreeable and wholesome. I wonder if Dr. Campbell does not know that? Just see how elastic they are!"

"I am sure they are very nice," said Marion, feeling as if any bed would be welcome.

And at last, after having displayed the superior excellences of the dressing-bureau, the wash-stand, and the rocking-chair to anything at the valley, Gerty said "Good-night."

Marion, thoroughly weary, said her prayers, asking for special grace to suit her new circumstances, and went to bed to dream that she was trying to drive a pony across the Susquehanna on a spring bed, which formed the only bridge.

The next morning her trunk came, and Bram took his leave.

For a week or two, as Bram had predicted, Gerty was very kind and polite to her visitor. She took her out to drive every pleasant day, and made a delightful expedition to Coaltown, and from there to visit several localities of interest.

It was at Coaltown that the first real offence was given. Marion was looking from the window of the hotel upon the street while Gerty rested on the sofa before dinner. Suddenly the air was pervaded by an unearthly noise, as of a hundred elephants all gone melancholy mad and all howling at once.

Marion put her hands to her ears:

"What is that horrible din?"

"That's the steam-gong," said Gerty, with the air of one doing the honours. "It can be heard nine miles."

"I should think it might be heard nine hundred," said Marion; "and do look, Gerty! What are these?" As the street suddenly became filled with an immense crowd of black, demoniac-looking figures, each bearing a small lighted lamp on his forehead.

"What are they?" asked Marion, in wonder. "They look like demons of the pit."

"That is just what they are—demons of the coal-pit," said Gerty, laughing. "They are the coal-miners, child; there are ever so many mines in the city."

"But how many lame people there are among them!" said Marion. "See, there is a man with one leg, and there is another; and oh what a horrid scar that poor cripple has on his face!"

"Yes, they are always getting hurt," said Gerty, indifferently. "Not a week passes that some of them are not killed, or crippled for life."

"What a dreadful thing!" said Marion.

"A great deal of it comes from their own carelessness, they say. Not but there are unavoidable accidents, of course. What with the furnaces and engines, and the dozens of railroad tracks, people are always being killed."

"How horrid!" said Marion, shuddering. "It would be as bad as living in the front of an army. I am glad I don't live in Coaltown."

"Then you think you wouldn't like to live here?" asked Asahel from the balcony outside, where he was enjoying a cigar.

"No, indeed," answered Marion; "I don't fancy living where locomotive engines are allowed to run loose in the streets as they do here. I think the noises are quite dreadful."

"But up where we went this afternoon there are no noises and no engines," said Gerty, her colour rising a little.

"No, it was pretty; but still, you know, you would have to come down very often. After all, I suppose I may be prejudiced against Coaltown, though it is my native place, you know," Marion added, smiling.

"Your native place!" repeated Asahel. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that I was born here. Why, surely you knew that. But mother had pretty hard times here, I suppose; anyhow, she dislikes the place very much."

"What were you thinking of, Asahel? Don't you know Mrs. Van Alstine went from here to be cook or nurse—which was it?—to your mother?" said Gerty.

"Housekeeper," said Marion, trying to speak quietly, though her blood tingled.

"And a great blessing she was," said Asahel.

"Oh, housekeeper, was it? Well, it must be admitted that she succeeded in keeping the house very effectually," said Gerty, with her peculiar little laugh—"a good deal better than her mistress did. Asahel, why don't they call us to supper? Oh, here they come."

Nothing could exceed Gerty's amiability at the table and during the evening. "I never bear malice," she was wont to say of herself; "I say my say, and that is the end of it—"

That is, having stabbed her antagonist with a poisoned knife, she was quite ready to forgive and even to pet him afterward. She was wont on these occasions to assume an air of solicitous kindness and affection which did not make the sufferer any more comfortable under the smart of his wounds. She talked to Marion, was very careful that she should be helped to the best of everything; and when they went out for a little shopping expedition after tea, she insisted on buying for Marion a pretty collar and necktie which she admired.

If Marion had "followed her impulses" as the heiress of McGregor took pride in doing, she would have thrown the parcel into the street. But she did not. She certainly accepted the present somewhat coolly, and with an internal resolution that she would bestow some present of equal value on Gerty at the very first opportunity. But she had too much respect and pity for Asahel to quarrel with Gerty if she could help it. She had a hard struggle with herself after she went to her room before she could be sure that she had forgiven the offence.

"If she had insulted me, I should not have minded so much, but to speak so of mother, and such an unprovoked insult! Only for distressing Asahel, I would go home to-morrow. But there is no use in thinking about that. Oh, if I could only forget it! But I can't do that, either, and I can't make myself forgiving as I know I ought to be. Oh, help me to do right. Help me to forgive as Thou hast so often forgiven me."

It was a long time before Marion could sleep, but she did at last, and woke to find that the work she could not do, had been done for her. The rest of the journey was very pleasant, and Marion could write to Bram with a good conscience that she had enjoyed it very much.

But as time went on, Marion began to grow homesick. She was very lonely. She missed the great family at the valley—the boys with their various interests, Betsy with her odd speeches and her various and vehement expressions of opinion on all possible subjects, the Overbeck little ones, always in and out. Above all, she missed the kindly, genial atmosphere of home, where everybody tried to add to the general happiness, where the pleasure of one was the happiness of all, and nobody took delight in the annoyance of another. Teasing had always been made a high crime and misdemeanour in the Van Alstine family code. Nor was this all she missed. Since Marion had fairly waked up from her long day-dream and began to live outside of herself, her mind had taken a great start. She had learned especially to appreciate intelligent conversation, and she had enjoyed a great deal of it during last winter.

Gerty had no lack of either intelligence or education, but she did not care for the things that the people at Hemlock Valley cared for—the things which made up life to the Campbells and Mrs. Andrews and the boys. She took no interest in books, none in her husband's business. She cared for nothing but talking about people. Every one of her acquaintances was pitilessly attacked and ruthlessly dissected. She contrived to know more about the private affairs of all the people in the village than Marion could have supposed possible, especially as she seemed to have very little to do with them.

Marion wondered at this. She had heard a good deal about the pleasant society at Rock Bottom, and as the days went on she was rather surprised that they had so few calls. Mrs. Landon and her daughters came to see Marion directly. She was a kind, gracious, motherly woman, and the girls were pleasant and cultivated, and Marion spent a day with them and found them very agreeable companions. Emily had a taste for drawing, and was working at it by herself. Marion was glad to be able to help her. She had a genuine and unusual talent for art, and under Mrs. Andrews's tuition, she had made remarkable progress in water-colour painting and sketching from nature. She found it very pleasant to go out sketching with Emily, and in the ravine above the town and down on the bank of the river they found abundance of studies. Marion, however, did not go as often as she would have liked, because Gerty complained of being left alone.

"I thought you had a good deal of society here?" said Marion, innocently, one day to Emily when they were out sketching together, "making a study" of the end of the old gray tannery and the bank on which it leaned.

"So we do," said Emily. "I don't believe there is a place of the size in the State where you will find more pleasant people than in Rock Bottom."

"So I heard, but I don't see many of them. We hardly ever have any calls."

Emily dabbled her brush very fast in her water-glass, and her cheeks turned very pink:

"Well, the truth is, Marion, your sister is no favourite here. She doesn't mean any harm, I dare say, but you know her way of talking; and the long and the short of it is, she has made so many unkind speeches and said so many hard things that she has offended almost every lady in the place."

"What a pity!" said Marion. "Take care, Emily; you are working that up too much. Let it dry till the rest is done, and then you can glaze it if you like."

"It isn't that Mrs. Van Alstine isn't kind in one way," continued Emily; "she is always ready to do for the sick and to give to the poor, but she spoils it all with her speeches. If you knew how she talks about father! It is no thanks to her that we are here now."

"I do know," said Marion; "but, Emily, she doesn't mean half of it. It is a foolish way of talking she has got into. Then she is not at all well: she has very bad headaches; and besides, I think she has some trouble that she does not tell of; and the discomfort makes her irritable."

"Poor thing! I am sure I am sorry for her," said Emily; "but you see, Marion, other people don't know these things, and they can't be expected to make allowances, as you do. Besides, to tell you the truth, it is not only that Mrs. Van Alstine says sharp things. She says scandalous things that get repeated and make trouble, and she talks from one to another. I have wanted to tell you this, though it doesn't seem just the thing, either," continued Emily, greatly endangering the "keeping" of her stump in her confusion and earnestness. "I thought you would think it very strange that so few people in the church called on you."

"It did seem odd, but then, you know, I don't know much of the world," said Marion. "I never lived anywhere but at Holford and in the valley. Everybody was very sociable at Holford, and I think Aunt Barbara was a very great favourite. And in the valley, you know, there are only ourselves. But I am sorry for Gerty."

"And so am I, and so is mother, but we can't help her much. We visit her and ask her to our house, but we can't make other people do so. Look, Marion; is that right?"

"Very nice indeed," pronounced Marion, inspecting the sketch; "I think it is quite wonderful for a first attempt."

"And I am sure yours is beautiful," exclaimed Emily. "I wouldn't have believed any one could make such a pretty picture of a tannery."

"I thought it would please Asahel," said Marion. "Do you mind waiting while I touch these leaves again? No; on the whole I won't. Come, Emily; let's pack up the traps and go home."

CHAPTER XXI.

WORK AT ROCK BOTTOM.

MARION stayed at the parsonage to tea, and had a very nice visit.

When she got home, she found two or three letters waiting for her from Hemlock Valley, and one from Lizzy Gates at Holford. The first tones of Gerty's voice told her what she was to expect.

"You are highly favoured in the line of letters, certainly," said Gerty. "What do they find to waste so much time and paper upon?"

"Oh, there is a great deal both of time and paper at Hemlock Valley," said Marion, gayly; "and I like to hear all the news."

"What news is there to tell?"

"Well, the tabby-cat has presented her owner with two tortoise-shell kittens, and Emma's doll Eugenia Stanley has met her death by being eaten up by Meg's puppy, and Mrs. Chris Hollenbeck has a baby girl. I believe those are the most important items of information, only father and Bram are coming over some time next week. And Lizzy Gates tells me all the Holford news about the girls. Oh, there is plenty to tell. See here, Asahel: come and look at my sketch and see if you know what it is meant for."

"The tannery, of course," said Asahel, coming to look at the sketch. "How natural it looks, with the tree over the end and that bit of the bridge coming in! Well, I never thought you would do as much as that, Marion. Your pictures look like real live things. It is worth while to take drawing-lessons if one can succeed in that style. See, Gerty, what a pretty picture Marion has made of the tannery."

"I can't say I see any great beauty in it—no disrespect to Marion," said Gerty, languidly glancing at the picture. "I dare say it is well done for water-colours, but I don't think much of them, anyway; and what is the use of taking so much trouble to make a picture of what one can see every day?"

"It is good study," said Marion; "and besides, the colours are very nice. The old gray building comes out so pretty against that bank of red rock and earth. At home the rocks are all cold and gray, not warm, as they are here."

"I shouldn't think there could be much difference in the temperature—at least in summer," said Asahel, innocently.

Marion laughed, "It isn't the temperature, it is the colour. Our rocks are all gray."

"Marion is doing the artist—don't you understand?" said Gerty. "She has read in a book that red things are warm, or perhaps dear Cousin Helen told her. I must say I don't think it in the best taste to talk so much paint-shop, especially considering that—"

"Well, that what?" asked Marion, looking full at her.

Gerty did not answer directly, but as Marion quitted the room to put away her painting things, she heard Gerty say in a tone which was evidently meant to catch her ear,—

"That her father was a worthless, drunken, dissipated sign-painter. If I were Marion, I'd do anything but paint."

Marion hastened up to her room and locked herself in. She had learned how to conquer now, but it was not always without a struggle. She prayed for grace to forgive and to be patient.

And then, to divert herself, she took out all her letters and read them over. They told her plenty of home and Holford news.

Lizzy was a delightful correspondent, and forgot nothing. Emily Sibley had gone out West to teach, and Mary McIntyre had come into her place, to her great delight. Matty McRae had gone away to boarding-school. Therese was doing admirably, and everybody liked her. They had a French club which met twice a week and talked only French, except when they talked Latin. And herewith Lizzy presented some specimens of Latin and French sentences over which Marion had a hearty laugh, which did her more good than a great many tears.

When she had finished the letters, she leaned back in her chair, absorbed in thought. Was it only a year since she had been a member of Crocker school? Her cheeks turned hot as she went back and remembered how she had wasted her time and employed her thoughts over visions of grandeur and magnificence—of the wonderful things she was to accomplish while she was letting precious time and opportunity pass by her unimproved.

"Oh dear! If I could only have them back!" she sighed. "But Cousin Helen was right. There is only just so much time, anyhow; and if we waste it, we never can find it again. And to think how I abused Aunt Baby's kindness and forbearance! I don't think I need resent Gerty's speeches when I remember how I used to speak to Aunt Baby."

"Don't you mean to come down, Marie?" called Gerty from the bottom of the stairs.

"No, I believe not," Marion answered, trying to speak exactly as usual. "I am pretty tired with my walk, and I think I will get off my things and lie down. Don't come up, Gerty; I don't want anything."

But Gerty insisted on coming up, and was exceedingly kind and solicitous that Marion should have everything comfortable, while Marion tried to accept the kindness and not to think of the tabby-cat playing with a mouse.

Gerty was certainly more trying than she had been. She was not at all well, and had been over to see the doctor at Coaltown. The doctor said Mrs. Van Alstine needed tonics, and had prescribed certain bitters to be taken before meals, and a glass of strong porter or whisky and water after dinner. Gerty was not averse to the medicine. She usually went to bed for a long nap after dinner, and often did not get up till tea-time.

Marion at first thought little of the matter, but by and by she began to be uneasy, and ventured on a remonstrance:

"Don't you think you take rather too much whisky, Gerty? I don't believe you feel as well for it. You seem to have a headache almost every morning."

"That is the reason I need it, child; it helps me every time. There! Don't be alarmed, Marion. I know you think I am going to turn out a drunkard like a wicked woman in a Sunday school book, but there is no danger."

Gerty spoke good-naturedly, and Marion was rather glad she had ventured, especially as Gerty omitted her dose next day, and for two or three succeeding days. She was very fretful and harder than ever to get on with, but Marion bore all patiently, and tried her best to be agreeable. But the amendment did not last.

Gerty went over to Coaltown, and returned with a new set of medicines and directions from the doctor. The next day Gerty did not get up to tea. Marion went to her room to call her, and found her in a dead sleep, with flushed cheeks and parched lips. Marion bent over to kiss her awake, but drew back disgusted and horrified. There was no doubt of the facts of the case: Gerty was dead drunk. She had taken an overdose of the "medicine," and this was the result.

"Oh how glad I am that Asahel is not at home!" was Marion's first thought.

Her next was of how to screen Gerty. She carefully closed the blinds and the door, and came out just in time to meet Mary coming in.

"Mrs. Van Alstine is asleep," said she. "I don't think I will wake her. You can make some fresh tea for her when she wakes up."

"And indeed, then, I can't, miss," answered Mary. "I've to go home and see my sister with her sick children, and Jane has gone to bed with a headache too."

"Then I will," said Marion. "Never mind, Mary; you needn't wait. Go to see your sister, and I will take care of the table."

"And it's yourself that's the nice young lady," said Mary, who was as Irish as the cove of Cork, and very good-natured and obliging. "I wouldn't give you the trouble, only for the children. I'll have everything convanient and make up the fire before I go."

Marion had not much appetite for her lonely meal, but she drank her tea and put away the silver, and then went into Gerty's room again.

She was wide enough awake now, and suffering from a horrible sick headache with all its attendant discomforts. She was sure she was going to die, and would have Marion send for the doctor directly.

"Humph!" said Doctor Noble, whose tongue was not under much better government than Gerty's own, and who had, besides, an old grudge to revenge. "It isn't very hard to see what is the matter. Doctor Smith's patients are very apt to have such attacks. You'll do well enough, only don't take quite so much next time."

Marion sat up with Gerty nearly all night. In the morning she was better, but really sick and miserable enough to be grateful for Marion's care.

"Did any one see me—Mary or any one?" she asked.

"No; I took care of that," said Marion.

"That was clever in you. Of course it was an accident. I hope Doctor Noble will hold his tongue."

"I should not think he would be likely to speak of it," said Marion.

"He may tell his wife, though; and if he does, every one will know it. They will be glad enough to get a handle against me. Marion, whatever you do, don't tell Asahel."

"Of, course not," answered Marion; "but, Gerty, I do wish you would leave off that stuff altogether. I'm sure it is not good for you. Just see how miserable you are this morning, and you grow thin every day."

"Oh, that is only because I took too much. I shall be more careful another time, but I can't leave it off all at once, after taking it so long."

"So long!" repeated Marion, startled. "How long? It isn't so very long since you went to Doctor Smith the first time."

"Yes, but then I used it a little before that. I used to take it when I was a girl, before I was married, till mother got scared and made me promise that I would never touch whisky again without the advice of a physician. I did not for a long time, but I felt so weak and miserable that I know I needed it. I tried to get Doctor Fenn or your uncle to recommend it, but they wouldn't. So finally I began it without any prescription, but I didn't feel really easy till I got Doctor Smith's word for it. But I won't be so careless again, I promise you."

Marion was forced to be content; but, it was not long before the same thing happened again, also when Asahel was away for a day and night. Again Marion screened and covered up and watched. Again Gerty was sorry and declared that it was an accident. She certainly did not thrive on Doctor Smith's treatment. She grew thin and pale, querulous and suspicious.

Jane, the housemaid went away, and Marion found her hands full enough of work between nursing Gerty, keeping house, and presiding at the table when, as too often happened, Gerty was unable to appear. Tanners are famous for having company. They sleep, dine, and sup at each other's houses as a matter of course; and Marion never knew that she might not have two or three strange gentlemen and ladies to entertain at dinner and tea. She could not tell whether or not Asahel was aware of the true cause of Gerty's attacks, but she felt that the subject was one to which she could not venture to allude. She felt her position to be an awkward and trying one. Certainly it was very different from any ever occupied or contemplated by the heiress of the McGregors, being one where she had a great deal of hard work and annoyance with very little credit.

Gerty was one of the most skilful of housekeepers, but now she could hardly be brought to take any interest or give any directions. With all her pains, Marion often made mistakes and omissions, and Asahel felt the difference, and sometimes commented on it. Mary, an elderly Irish woman, took her own way, with very little respect to Miss Marion's authority, and the new girl broke dishes, slopped water, and blundered without stint. Marion had never worked so hard in her life. Her drawing was entirely laid aside, she had no time to read, and withal she suffered from over-fatigue, and had returns of her old backaches. She had just made up her mind that she must go home, when matters came to a climax.

A gentleman and his wife came to tea. Gerty was asleep, and Marion prepared to do the honours, as usual. By some unlucky accident, Gerty was awakened; and hearing strange voices in the dining-room, she presently made her appearance with scarlet face and disordered dress, and pushing Marion aside, she took her own place at the tea-board uttering incoherent reproaches against her husband and Marion for not calling her when there was company in the house.

It was a dreadful time. The visitors took their leave as soon as they could, and Gerty was got back to bed.

The next day she was very ill, really ill, and before night had a copious bleeding from the lungs. Doctor Campbell was sent for, but gave no hope of her recovery.

Gerty was sober enough now. After the examination, she insisted on knowing what the doctor thought.

He told her as gently as he could.

She received the news very calmly, saying that she had always expected to die of consumption some time or other.

"Do you think there is any use in taking her away? Would a change of air do anything for her?" asked Asahel.

"I think not," replied Dr. Campbell; "the disease is too far advanced. She may rally and be better for a time, but it is not probable."

Now came the question as to what was to be done. Gerty's own mother was dead, and she was not on good terms with her stepmother or her younger sisters. She declared positively that she would have none of her own family.

"Get a nurse to take care of me, and let Marion stay and keep house if she will," said Gerty. "I am used to her now and she knows my ways. Martha is a goose, and Anne and I are too much alike to agree. We should quarrel all the time, just as we used to when I was home."

"But, Gerty, my dear, I am afraid Marion is hardly strong enough," said Mrs. Van Alstine, anxious to please Gerty, but afraid for her own child.

"She shall have no work to do," said Gerty, eagerly. "The girls can do the work, and I will have a nurse to take care of me. But I like Marion; she has been very, very good." The eagerness with which she spoke set her to coughing violently and brought on another bleeding, which lasted a long time and left her evidently very much worse than before.

"Do you think you can stay, Marie?" asked her mother. "I don't like to cross the poor child in what she has set her heart on."

"Of course I can," answered Marion, cheerfully; "I do think I can get on with her better than any one else."

"Yes, you really seem to have some influence. But you must be very careful."

So it was settled. Almira Pratt came from the valley to nurse Gerty, and Marion stayed to keep house and be company for Asahel.

Bram was not at all pleased with the arrangement.

"It is just offering you up on the shrine of Gerty, and I don't think it is fair," said he, when he was taking Marion out for a drive. "I don't see what special claim she has on you."

"She said I just suited her," answered Marion, smiling.

"If you do, you are the first who ever did. I should like to know how you do it."

"By letting her say what she pleases and never answering her, I suppose. At any rate, that is what I do. I used to try to hold my own at first, and make her hear reason, but I found there was no use in that. I was no match for her, and there was no end to it. Besides, I learned to take her speeches at their real value. When she was particularly aggravating, I used to say to myself,—

"'She doesn't mean me; she means the dress that would not fit, or the stains that won't come out of the tablecloth, or the cold in her head.'

"I represent these things for the time being. Besides, I have a fellow-feeling for her. I remember when I thought myself that it was rather smart to hurt people's feelings by saying sharp things."

"Well, anyhow, I don't see why you should stay here; though, to be sure, if one can do the poor thing good. I suppose there is no hope?"

"Uncle Duncan says not. He thinks she will not last long, and that she will go very suddenly."

"Well, don't overwork yourself. I know I am very selfish, but we do want you at home so much."

"Stannie will be home presently, you know," said Marion, consolingly.

"Stannie is Stannie and you are you," was the answer. "She doesn't fill your place at all. Betsy will be furious."

"Oh no, she won't; she will hear reason. And one thing I can tell you, Bram: we don't do justice to Gerty's good qualities at home. There is nothing she won't do for any one who is sick or in trouble, and she is the best housekeeper I ever saw."

"I know that just as well as you do," replied Bram. "You forget that she lived in the valley three years before she came here. But what was the use of her helping people in trouble, when she was tattling from one to the other, making endless mischief among the work-people and everywhere else by her gossiping? If Amity had not been just the frank, outspoken soul she is, there would have been a regular break between the families. She tried her best to make mother jealous of Cousin Helen; and failing that, she got furiously jealous herself. Oh yes, I know all her good qualities, but her tongue spoils it all. It is just like the turpentine that Betsy put into her mother's mincemeat instead of rose-water. There was very little of it, but it spoiled all the pies."

"I know," said Marion, sighing. "And yet Gerty thinks she is a Christian."

"Well, I don't see how she can.

"'If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue,—'

"you know. Well, Marie, take good care of yourself and come home as soon as you can."

Certainly there was a great change in Marion's relations to the family at the valley.

Almira Pratt proved an excellent nurse, and there was help enough, yet Marion found her task by no means an easy one. Gerty had many days of restlessness and wandering, and at times her old demon of sarcasm seemed to take entire possession of her, so that even Almira Pratt, experienced nurse as she was, found it hard to bear with her patient.

"I've nursed unreasonable folks before," she said one day; "but I never saw anybody who could contrive to hurt folks' feelings as you can, Mrs. Van Alstine. It seems to me if I were where you are, I should be trying to leave pleasant remembrances behind me."

"Well, I can't help it," said Gerty, who seemed to be struck by this blunt way of putting the matter. "It is natural to me to be sarcastic, and I can't help it."

"Did you ever try?" asked Almira.

Gerty did not answer, but it was plain that the words made an impression on her. It was not long afterward that she said to Marion,—

"Marion, when I leave Rock Bottom, I shall not leave a single friend behind me."

"People have been very kind in coming to ask for you and offering to sit up," said Marion.

"Oh yes, I know—they are always that here. It is my own fault. I don't blame any one. I was brought up to think it was smart to be sarcastic and say unkind things. Father always did it, and he and mother used to have regular fencing-matches of words. Whatever annoyance either of them felt came right out, and they were always in the habit of talking over everybody and everything before me. So it is no wonder if I did the same when I grew up."

"But didn't you know it was wrong, Gerty?"

"Yes, I knew it in my own soul, but I would not own it even to myself. I have made my husband unhappy and separated him from all his friends. I have left myself almost alone in the world. Marion, I wish you would send for Mr. Landon. I want to see him. I have used him shamefully, and done all I could to undermine him in the parish, but I think he would come if he knew I wanted him."

"I will go for him myself," said Marion, rejoicing at this sign of relenting, for since her illness Gerty had steadily refused either to see a minister or hear a word on the subject of religion. "I am sure he will come directly."

Mr. Landon came, and had a long interview with Gerty.

There was a great change in her after this. She was far more patient and easier to deal with, though often sad and silent for days together.

Bram came over and relieved Asahel in a great measure from business, so that he could give his time to his wife, and they spent many hours alone together. To him alone Gerty spoke of her religious experience. He told Marion that she was sometimes quite despairing, but at others she was able to lay hold on the hope set before her.

It was a sad time, and rather a hard one for Marion, who had most of the responsibility of housekeeping, and was very anxious to keep a comfortable home for Asahel. A year ago she would have failed utterly even if she had attempted the task, but now she gave her whole mind to the work, and on the whole succeeded remarkably well. It was good discipline for her, and kept her from falling into her old daydreaming habits, a temptation to which she was rather apt to give way over her painting or her sewing. She made mistakes enough in her housekeeping to keep her from being set up in her own conceit or thinking herself a model housekeeper. Asahel never complained, however, and hardly seemed to know whether he had anything to eat or not, and Bram thought all Marion's doings right because she did them.

It was a sad time, but it did not last long. The first week in July, Gerty seemed better; she sat up more, had a little appetite, and for the first time expressed a wish to get out of her room.

One pleasant afternoon Asahel carried her into the parlour and laid her on the sofa. Marion had taken great pains to arrange everything just as she knew Gerty liked it. A beautiful dish of flowers sent in by a neighbour was on the little table, and the garden was gay and sweet with roses and lilies. Gerty looked round with interest.

"How nice the room looks!" said she. "Marion, you must have taken a deal of care of everything."

"I have tried," said Marion.

Gerty was silent a while, and then began asking about one thing and another concerning the housekeeping. Marion answered all her questions, brought her the napkins and clothes that she might judge of the new girl's washing, and displayed the fine darning with which she had repaired a cut tablecloth.

Gerty was pleased with everything, enjoyed everything, and seemed so bright and strong that both Asahel and Marion were encouraged, but Almira shook her head sadly.

"You had better send for your pa and ma if you want them to see her," she said to Marion, privately. "I'm much mistaken if you don't see a change to-night or to-morrow."

"But she seems so much stronger, Almira!"

"It is just the lighting up for death," said Almira. "I've seen it too many times to be mistaken."

The event proved that the experienced nurse was right.

Gerty lay on the sofa in the parlour all the afternoon, and took her tea there.

"Hadn't you better go back now?" said Almira.

"I suppose so," answered Gerty. She sat up, and even rose to her feet and stood for a minute or two looking wistfully about her.

"I wish you could carry me into the dining-room," said she. "Do you think you could without hurting yourself, Asahel?"

Asahel looked at Almira.

"It won't hurt her," said Almira, answering the look with one which Asahel and Marion well understood.

So Gerty was carried into the dining-room, and then into the kitchen for a moment.

"There! That will do," said Gerty. "I wanted to see it all once more. It looks very nice and pleasant. I've always been a good housekeeper, haven't I, Asahel?"

"Yes, indeed you have. Never was a better."

"I don't know about that," said Gerty. "If it was to do again, I should use my house more as Mother Van Alstine does. Marion is going to make a good housekeeper too, I see. She keeps things in nice order."

"I tried to keep them as I thought you would like to see them," said Marion, with a tight pain in her throat, but trying to speak cheerfully. She felt that Gerty was taking a last farewell of her house and home.

Once more Gerty stopped on the threshold of her room and looked about her for a moment. Then she drew a long, deep, sorrowful sigh.

"If it was to go over again, I would try to do differently in some things," she repeated. "But it is all at an end now. I have done with it all. There, lay me down, Asahel, I have done with it all."

Marion went out and left them together—to the parlour where Almira was picking up the pillows and shawls.

"What do—" Marion paused.

"What do I think? I think as she says, poor thing! She has done with it all."

"Why do you think so?"

"How can I tell? I know the signs, but I couldn't describe them to any one who hadn't the experience."

"How long do you think it will be?"

"I can't tell that, either. If she lasts over the turn of the night, she will live till sunrise, perhaps till noon. She may last two or three days, but I don't think so."

The nurse was right. At midnight there was a cry made,—

"Behold the Bridegroom cometh!"

Marion was called and came down to find Gerty sighing her life away on her husband's shoulder. She was quite herself, calm and collected, and aware of her situation. She was not afraid, she said. She had been a great sinner, but she believed she had been forgiven. She spoke a few words at longer and longer intervals:

"Marion, whatever your health may be, don't let any doctor get you into the habit of living on stimulants. I always took them—opium or something. I think I shouldn't have been so bad only for that. Give my love to them all at the valley. Tell father he was right."

So died Gertrude Van Alstine, a woman with many admirable qualities, which were made all but useless by her envenomed tongue, by the reckless sarcasm, misrepresentation, and scandal which made her disliked and dreaded by almost every one with whom she had to do.

CHAPTER XXII.

"IT WON'T DO."

"I AM afraid it won't do, Marie! I wouldn't discourage you if I could help it, but indeed I don't think it would do to risk it. You see the strain was more severe than we thought at the time, and I fear that after all our care, we let you get up too soon. I am afraid, my dear, that it will never be a very strong back again."

"Then I must give up all thoughts of Tabriz."

"I think so. You see how these few and easy rides have hurt you. How would you bear weeks of horseback travel with the roughest accommodations, to say nothing of the work at the end? You would not wish to go to be a burden upon busy hands when you get there?"

"No, but—" Marion broke down and cried bitterly.

For three years she had been training and disciplining herself for the work of a foreign missionary.

There had been a good many changes in that time. Hector McGregor had gone to his rest in his ninetieth year, beloved and honoured by all who knew him. The lease expired with him; and though the duke offered to renew it or to sell the land on the most favourable terms, Alick had no desire to accept the offer. The farm was but a barren and stony one at the best, and only his father's attachment to the old place could have kept Alick on it so long. Then the duke offered him an agency, but this, though profitable in a pecuniary point of view, did not suit Alick any better. He loved travel. His eyes had long been turned wistfully toward California, and the time seemed, now to have come for him to gratify his longing for Western travel.

But what was to become of Aunt Barbara? Of course, if Alick was to settle in California, she would go to him.

"But in the mean time, I must have a home somewhere, and something to do in it," said Aunt Baby; "I can't be visiting all that time, you know, my dear."

Then a bright thought occurred to Marion.

Why should not Auntie Baby keep house for Asahel? Asahel was unwilling to break up the house in which poor Gerty had taken such pride, so long as his business required him to stay in Rock Bottom. He had tried one housekeeper after another, but every arrangement had fallen through so far. Aunt Baby was a capital housekeeper, and a pleasant companion into the bargain. Why should not she make a home for Asahel and Asahel for her?

Marion mentioned the matter first to her mother, and then, with her entire approbation, to Asahel. Asahel caught at the notion. It would be delightful—the next thing to having mother herself. So the matter was arranged, and Auntie Baby took up her abode in Rock Bottom, finding great delight in her numerous family of nephews and nieces, who all adopted her at once, and making herself as much loved in the little community as poor Gerty had been disliked and dreaded. She was sometimes a little disturbed by what she deemed her nephew's lavish expenditure, and Asahel now and then remonstrated mildly at Aunt Baby's little economies, but in general they jogged on together very nicely.

Other changes had taken place. Henry's theological course was nearly finished. He had received a call to a new church and parish in Colorado, and Stanley's wedding outfit was already in hand. The middle boys were both away from home. Bram was studying medicine with Doctor Fenn in Ivanhoe and attending lectures in New York. Frank, to his own intense delight, had obtained an appointment as clerk and junior botanist to some one of those exploring expeditions which are continually being sent out by government, and was having all sorts of delightful adventures and risks in the far North-west. The Scotchmen, as they were still called, went over to Ivanhoe to school every day. Betsy had developed into a charming young lady, with just enough of her girlish oddities left to make her original and brilliant. She was quite a model elder daughter when at home, but she was now at school in New York, working hard at her music, which was still her favourite pursuit. The Overbeck little ones were growing up, and a new little boy, as Eileen called him, had dethroned Dotty from his proud position of King Baby.

Marion had been gaining in all these years. She was now a somewhat tall, well-developed girl, strikingly pretty and very elegant and attractive. She had been at Round Spring for a year and a half, where she had won golden opinions from teachers and schoolmates, and she had been at Holford to help Auntie Baby break up. She had followed up her water-colour painting with great success, and had sold two or three pictures very well. She might have had an excellent position and a large salary as teacher of painting, but she felt that she must stay at home for the present.

It has been said once in this story that tanning runs in families, and the same might be said of missionary work. The children of missionaries almost always become missionaries themselves. Living as she did with Doctor and Mrs. Campbell, hearing constantly all the particulars of their work, reading letters from their pupils and from friends on the field, moreover, living an earnest Christian life and desirous of doing some special Christian work,—it was not strange that Marion's heart should have turned toward the mission field. She had not talked much about the matter, but it had never been out of her mind all through her school and home life for two years past.

No doubt she worked all the better for having set this definite aim before herself. She learned all her lessons with a view to teaching them to others, and so she went to the bottom of every one and left no unexplored ground behind her. She omitted no opportunity of practicing teaching and succeeded very well, and she was skilful in all sorts of household work. Auntie Baby was wont to boast that her darling could do everything needful to make a stocking from the time the wool came off the sheep to the final "toeing off;" and that is what few lasses can say nowadays. She could make her own dresses and her father's shirts, and "run" all sorts of sewing-machines. Butter and cheese-making she had learned on the old farm under Auntie Baby's skilful teaching, and she was a very excellent cook. All these accomplishments would be so many helps to Marion's usefulness in the mission field.

But there was one great hindrance—a hindrance of which she was herself dimly aware, though she resolutely turned her eyes away and forgot it as far as she could. That hindrance was the state of her health. She was not very strong. Ever since her fall into the old hemlock, her back had been somewhat weak, and she was subject to severe pain in back and head if she walked or rode too much. It was a subject to which she did not like to allude. She never complained, and the question, "Does your back ache?" always annoyed her. By dint of constant care, she got on in school and at home very comfortably, and was not often laid by more than a day at a time. Perhaps there was something of Marion's old self-will in the way she resolutely shut her eyes to this hindrance. She could not bear to see it, and so she would not see it.

But the time came when the matter must be decided. A teacher was wanted for one of the Persian schools, and the place was offered to Marion. She might have a month in which to decide, and would not be obliged to go under six months, which would give her ample time to make all her preparations and learn something of the language.

Of course the matter was talked over in the family in all its bearings. It came very hard upon Eileen and Auntie Baby to think of parting with their only girl, but they both felt that Marion must decide the matter for herself. Amity was sure that Marion would never be well enough to endure the journey, but she said very little. Doctor and Mrs. Campbell both thought Marion remarkably well qualified for the place if—there it was again—if she were only strong enough.

"Certainly she was the last person I should have picked out for the purpose when I first knew her," said Uncle Duncan.

"It was a grand thing for Marion, coming to the valley," replied Christian. "It was the making of her. But she had not a fair chance to show what was in her at home. She was badly spoiled."

"How spoiled?"

"By being regularly trained into selfishness. Barbara meant well, as she always does, but she made a great mistake, or so it seems to me. Instead of training Marion to wait upon others and to find her pleasure in so doing, she made herself a slave to Marion. To one so brought up, nothing better could have happened than to be thrown into a large family of good-natured people and made to stand on her own merits. Poor child! She must have suffered dreadfully in the disenchanting process. She was so firmly convinced of her own superiority."

"It was a very successful process. Marion is as little self-conscious at present as any girl I ever saw."

It was Asahel who made the first practical suggestion:

"Marie wants to try her strength. The teacher in the Jones district has given out. The school-house is three miles off. Let Marion teach the last three weeks of the school, riding over on the old pony in the morning and back at night. That will be a pretty fair trial of her strength. If she stands that, she may think of the other thing."

"A very good idea," pronounced Doctor Campbell. "The road is a safe one, and the pony a nice, easy goer. It will be a very good test in more ways than one."

Marion accepted the test with enthusiasm. She was fond both of teaching and riding, and she had a special interest in the Jones district. For a week or two she enjoyed her rides very much, and said quite honestly that they did not hurt her at all. Then she began to lie down a little before tea, to go to bed pretty early, and to gratify her friends in the district by accepting invitations to stay all night.

She persevered to the end of the quarter and rode home as usual, but she went to bed directly after tea, and did not get up again for a week.

Doctor Campbell attended on her, but made no allusion to the subject which he knew was filling her mind. He saw that she was passing through a great and severe struggle, but he thought she would fight it out better without any human interference. He was right.

Marion was fighting a battle with her old self-will, possibly, too, with her old desire of doing some great thing which should reflect honour on herself.

At last, one morning, she called the doctor into her room. She told him all her desires and all her hindrances, concealing nothing and answering all the doctor's trying questions as honestly as she knew how. The examination was a close and searching one, and the doctor's decision is recorded in the first part of this chapter:

"It won't do, Marion. I am very sorry both for your sake and that of the cause, but I dare not give you any encouragement."

It was no wonder that Marion cried bitterly. She wept for no light affliction. It was a sore trial to give up her cherished plan, to have made herself ready for a race, and then to be forbidden to run.

Doctor Campbell stood by in silence. He saw that her grief was very great, and he did not try to administer comfort till the first violence of it should have spent itself.

"I hope I am not self-willed," said Marion, at last, through her tears. "I don't mean to be."

"I don't think you are, my child."

"It isn't only giving up this particular work," said Marion, after another pause, during which she was trying to regain her composure. "But it seems so dreadful to have to be an invalid all my life, just good for nothing."

"It is sad to be an invalid, certainly," replied Doctor Campbell; "but I don't think you have that to fear. If you are careful to avoid needless exposure and over-exertion, I think you may keep very comfortable. Moreover, if you were a good deal of an invalid, you need not be useless on that account. A great deal of the best work of the world has been done by invalids."

"Why, Uncle Duncan! I am sure I always thought that sickness and uselessness were one and the same thing. Mrs. Wheelwright, who was our matron at Round Springs for a time, used to say that health was everybody's first duty, and that sick people were only cumberers of the ground."

"Mrs. Wheelwright was a goose, or more probably a parrot," answered the doctor, with some heat. "I suppose she repeated what she had heard from somebody else. It is undoubtedly true that nobody has the right recklessly or needlessly to expose his health; but as to its preservation being one's first duty in all cases, that is simple nonsense. Health, like other things, must be 'kept on the altar,' as Father Hollenbeck says, you know—that is, it must be held ready for sacrifice, like everything else, at the call of duty. What would Mrs. Wheelwright say of a soldier, for instance, who made it his first duty to take care of his own health?"

"Or a mother with a sick child?" said Marion.

"Or a minister or doctor in time of pestilence, or an army-surgeon, or any one else who is anxious and determined to do his duty in that state of life to which it has pleased God to call him? It is your duty to keep well if you can, but to hold your health, your time and money, and all your other gifts at the command of your Master."

"Mr. Hausen and Mrs. Wheelwright had an argument about that very thing," said Marion. "He said just what you do—that it was sometimes a duty to disregard one's health. But Mrs. Wheelwright said it could be nobody's duty to be sick."

"That was not the point. Nobody ever said it was a duty to be sick, that I know of."

"And she said habitual invalids were useless cumberers of the ground—good for nothing themselves and selfish hinderers of other people. Do you think that is true?"

"No, Marion, not necessarily. I must say that I have seen more selfishness among well people than I have ever met with among invalids. Some invalids are selfish and exacting, no doubt, and so are many who have not their excuse. As to their being useless cumberers of the ground, do you call Miss Nightingale such a cumberer?"

"No, indeed."

"And yet she has been more or less an invalid all her life. So was Robert Hall, the preacher and Doctor Dalton, the famous chemist; Stephenson and Watt, the great engineers, were both subject to dreadful headaches, and Mr. Watt to such fits of hypochondria that his friends feared he would destroy himself. Both the great princes of Orange were sickly men. The one who was king of England suffered so from asthma that he was often unable to lie down for days together. John Knox was never strong; neither was Melanchthon, nor Tyndale, nor Henry Martyn; Thierry, the historian, never stood on his own feet, nor did the least thing for himself for twenty years and more. Your favourite King Alfred was always a great sufferer."

"That is a long list," said Marion, much interested and forgetting her own trouble for the moment. "How did you come to find out about all these people, Uncle Duncan?"

"Partly to console a lady as I have been consoling you. I met her at the springs last summer, and one day I found her in great grief over a letter her husband had just received. It seems he had been called to a parish in the country, but after he had accepted the call came this letter, saying that the church understood that his wife was a permanent invalid, and as they always expected their pastor's wife to take the lead in all sorts of good works, they must withdraw their call."

"They must be a nice people," said Marion.

"I think myself he had an escape, but you can imagine how his wife would feel. She had no prospect, as she thought, of being anything but a hindrance and a trouble all her life. So I made out this list—only much more at length—to comfort her."

"But, after all, Uncle Duncan, it is a great disappointment," said Marion. "I did so want to do the Master's work."

"And has any one said you should not, my dear lassie?"

"It seems so. It seems as if he had rejected me."

"Not at all. It is not rejecting your services to give you other work than that you have picked out for yourself. Do you remember long ago how offended you were because I wanted you to do the work and let Auntie Baby sit with Therese?"

"Yes; and what an affair I made of it when I got my own way!"

"Exactly; and a good many other persons have got into trouble because they were determined to have their own way in spite of all hindrances. If you are willing to work, you will have work enough to do. What better place do you want than that of a daughter at home?"

"No better; only that it is so easy."

"I would not trouble myself about that. Depend upon it, my dear, any faithful, self-denying Christian life involves plenty of hardness. But it is no sign that you are to give up the missionary work because you cannot go abroad. There is plenty to be done for it at home. Now I think you are tired enough, and had better lie down and have a good long rest. Try to take up the cross honestly, my child. It is the only way. 'If thou bear the cross, the cross also will bear thee.'"

And Marion did try, and succeeded. It was very hard to give up her cherished plans—hard to lay aside and say farewell to the object which had occupied her so long, to take up with such a quiet and unobserved part after looking forward to a position so much more conspicuous. But she knew where to look for help, and she looked and found it.

Her mother's words on hearing the decision brought her her first comfort:

"I can't help being thankful, Marion, my dear—not that you are disappointed, of course, but that I am not to lose you. I did feel as if I wanted my daughter at home."

So Doctor and Mrs. Campbell went back to Syria, whither Mrs. Andrews meant to follow them as soon as she had seen Stanley settled. Her own health was quite re-established, and her heart yearned toward her own work. Therese had had thoughts at one time of going, too, but it was not to be. Mrs. Tremaine met with an accident about the time old Madam Duval died which made her a cripple for the rest of her life. Kitty sent at once for Therese, who fell into her own place in the family, not to leave it again.

And Marion settled down quietly at home, helping her mother, teaching Amity's little ones, and painting pictures, by the sale of which she supported a little girl in the school she once expected to teach. But other work has come to her of late. Two or three years ago she received a letter from Doctor Campbell in which occurred the following paragraph:

"Poor Mrs. Brown, who has been languishing so long, is released at last. She leaves two dear little girls of eight and six years old. Mr. Brown wants to send them home for their education, but neither he nor his wife has any near friends, and he does not know what to do with them, as they are too young to trust in school. Can you think of any one who would take them and give them a home and an education? Perhaps there may be some one in Holford. Mr. Brown is not rich, of course, but he is able to provide for his children at any reasonable rate. They are dear little things, and well trained so far."

Marion read this letter to her father in his office at the tannery.

He smiled when he heard of the children, but made no remark.

Two or three days afterward, he called Marion who was busy up-stairs with Eileen and Asa, who scorned the baby name of Dotty:

"Come, Marie, isn't school almost out? I am going to ride over toward Smith's Green to measure some bark, and I want your company."

"Can't I go, grandfather?" asked Asa, jumping up.

"Next time, perhaps; I want Marion to-day. Come, Marie, let them go for this time."

"The children seem to be getting on pretty well, don't they?" said Mr. Van Alstine, when they were fairly on their way and driving through the woods.

"Oh yes, very well, only I am afraid they get rather too much teaching for their good."

"Then you could manage two or three more?"

"Yes, a dozen if I had them. Why?"

"I was thinking of those little girls Duncan speaks of. Your mother and I were talking the matter over last night. You see there is abundance of room in this great old nest now so many of our brood are away scratching for themselves, and two children would help to fill it up again. Besides, I know you have always longed for missionary work."

Marion's heart beat almost too fast for speech. She had thought of the same thing more than once.

"Of course all the teaching and most of the care would fall on you," continued Mr. Van Alstine. "What do you say? Do you feel able to undertake it?"

"I think so," answered Marion. "I am pretty well nowadays."

"And you would like it?"

"Yes, indeed, I should. But, father, wouldn't such young children be a trouble to you and mother?"

"When did you ever know either of us troubled with children, my girl?"

"I could take Cousin Helen's old room for the nursery, you know, and the little back parlour would be the school-room again, as it used to be. How natural it would seem!"

"I see you have it all arranged. We'll talk it over again with your mother, and we will see what can be done."

In the course of a few months the two little Browns were comfortably settled in the valley and favourites with everybody.

Then came another petition. Would Miss McGregor receive another pupil, the daughter of an American missionary in Persia, who had also lost her mother? So Marion's little school grew till she had five pupils; more she would not take. Betsy enters into the scheme with enthusiasm, and is professor of music in the little seminary.

Marion's little school is now a flourishing institution, and bids fair to be established on a permanent basis.

One of her early day-dreams has been realized, so that she is quite independent in point of funds.

A year or two ago, an elder brother of her poor father found Alick in California, and of course, being both Scotchmen and McGregors, they at once set to work to find out how they were related. David McGregor learned for the first time that he had a niece living who was a very nice young woman. He at once sent her a present of a sealskin jacket and an alarmingly heavy chain of California gold, and dying not long after, left her a moderate fortune. So that our heroine is really at last the heiress of McGregor.

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Table of Contents

HEIRESS OF McGREGOR;

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER XIV.

CHAPTER XV.

CHAPTER XVI.

CHAPTER XVII.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CHAPTER XIX.

CHAPTER XX.

CHAPTER XXI.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE