"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."