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.