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."

[Illustration: _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."