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.