"Yes, indeed, I do," said Marion, with tears in her eyes.
"Then pray that your heart and will may be so sanctified that you shall hate sin because it is sinful," answered the doctor; "but, my dear girl, remember this—that you cannot take a single wilful sin into the kingdom with you. Remember that. Good-bye, my dear; I must not stay another minute."
Marion sat looking out of the window a while longer. Her face was dark and disturbed. She was going through a hard struggle, trying to say "good-bye" to a lifelong companion, to withdraw from the scenes where most of her life had hitherto been spent and shut the door behind her. She knew that the day-dreams in which she had indulged, though not sinful in themselves, perhaps, had become, like every amusement which is made an object, a temptation and snare to her. She knew that she had wasted precious time and opportunities never to be recalled while following the fortunes of the heiress of the McGregors. She felt, too, that, like one who has been a hard drinker, her only safety lay in total abstinence.
At last, as her mother returned from her drive and came in, Marion drew a long breath and turned away from the window. She had said a long farewell to the heiress of the McGregors.
[CHAPTER XVIII.]
THANKSGIVING.
MARION'S recovery was very slow and tedious. What she gained one week, she lost the next. She was able to sit up a part of every day, and after a while to go to dinner and tea, and even to spend an evening in the parlour now and then, but she could not walk any distance or sit up on a straight chair. There were many days when her back and head were racked with pain, and she could only lie still in her darkened room and endure.
It was a severe trial to Marion, who had never known sickness, and there were times when she found it very hard to be patient, especially when her services seemed so much needed. Henry continued very unwell, and Aunt Eugenia grew more and more feeble all the time.
Betsy did not get up very well from the measles. Her eyes had been greatly affected by the disease, and in her hurry to get back to her beloved music, she had tried them too soon, so that they were now quite useless for reading or work. It must be confessed that under this infliction, Betsy became rather an infliction herself. She practiced the pieces she knew by heart, and went over her scales and exercises till they became a weariness to the flesh.
"There's one thing about it, Betsy," said Marion to her one day when she was lying flat on the floor before the open fire in Marion's room. "Cousin Helen says you are gaining in your fingering all the time."