The heiress of McGregor

by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

She had been looking forward to her visit all the week long and making her little preparations for it, but she could not help seeing that her coming was unwelcome and ill-timed from some reason that she could not understand—that her mother was not glad to see her and wished her away. But she did not feel it as another girl would have done. She had been used to humouring her mother's dark moods ever since she could remember, and to seeing them come and go without any apparent cause. A cloud had overhung the little red house ever since she could recollect. She had learned not to be surprised when it lowered even deeper than usual, and to be thankful when it lifted ever so little.

There was in Holford a colony of French Canadians who had emigrated from the neighbourhood of Quebec and settled in that place, forming a suburb of the little village, called Frenchtown. They were a harmless set, not given to the hard work and close economy of their neighbours, but rather favourites than otherwise, from their good-nature and kindly ways. The women kept house and were called on to wash or cook when extra help was needed; some of the girls went to service or worked in the woollen mills or the cheese factories. The men helped in harvest and planting-time, practiced various little handicrafts, and hunted in the great woods of the Callum estate. The elders among them were nominal Roman Catholics, but the younger people had been got into Sunday schools and Bible classes, and not a few were church members.

Among these people the Beaubien family decidedly took the lead in respectability and thrift. One daughter had married a well-to-do farmer, another had a milliner's shop, in which she succeeded so well as to bring much custom from the neighbouring towns. One of the boys had cleared a farm for himself on the mountain side, and was doing well upon it, and the others were all recognized as respectable if not very industrious citizens.

But there was one black sheep in the flock. Antoine—or, as he was usually called, Tone—Beaubien was one of those boys who seem to love evil for its own sake, and at twenty-one he was a thorough outlaw. He had been in jail for various small robberies more than once, and was very strongly suspected of the graver offences of sheep stealing and passing counterfeit money. At twenty-five he was doing somewhat better. He worked with his father at his trade of harness and saddle making, in which the old man excelled, and was tolerably sober and steady, with the exception of an occasional spree, and now and then an absence of two or three months, when nobody knew of his whereabouts.

The prettiest and one of the steadiest girls in the settlement was Rose Duval, old Gabriel Duval's only child. Great was the amazement when it was discovered that she was being courted by Tone Beaubien, and that she was determined to marry him. In vain was every obstacle thrown in her way. In vain did Gabriel Duval forbid him the house. In vain did the Beaubiens themselves, who loved Rose dearly, tell her of Tone's character and warn her of the risk she ran. The wilful girl would have her way.

On one of Tone's periodical disappearances, Rose disappeared also, and came back with him at the end of three months just in time to see her father buried. Old Gabriel willed his daughter the little house and the land belonging to it as her portion, and there Tone and his young wife took up their abode. For a while things seemed to go well with them. They had the necessaries and a good many of the luxuries of life. Tone was often absent for weeks at a time, and his wife said he went as a sailor on the lake; but as these absences came quite as often in winter as in summer, very few people believed the story.

At last matters came to a climax. An old gentleman who had drawn a large sum of money from the Holford bank was shot down and robbed on his way home by three men. He lived long enough to give an account of the matter, and named Tone Beaubien as one of his assailants. Tone tried to prove an alibi but unluckily Alick McGregor swore to seeing him twice on the very day of the murder in the neighbourhood of his own house. Tone was committed for trial, but in some way or other he escaped, and was never seen in Holford again.

Nobody even suspected Rose of any share in her husband's misdeeds, and the people of Holford were as kind as she would allow them to be. Both her mother and her father-in-law would have taken her home, but she refused their offers, and lived alone with Therese in the old house under Blue Hill, having as little as possible to do with any one. She went out to work for the two or three farmers who lived within walking distance, and cultivated her potato-patch and garden ground with her own hands.

One of the hereditary arts of the French settlers was the making of a peculiar kind of fine basket-work. Rose took up this trade and made improvements on it. She sent her wares to a neighbouring city, where she got good prices for them, and in these ways she supported herself and her little girl.

Such was the cloud which overshadowed Therese Beaubien's entrance into life, and certainly it was a heavy one. Nevertheless, Therese managed to find a good deal of sunshine. Her health was perfect; her mother was sometimes affectionate, and never positively unkind. Though Rose herself never entered the door of either her mother or her father-in-law, she allowed Therese to visit both. The little girl stayed weeks and months with kind, cheerful old Grandfather Beaubien and her grandmother Duval.