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.