The heiress of McGregor

by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

Nothing could exceed Gerty's amiability at the table and during the evening. "I never bear malice," she was wont to say of herself; "I say my say, and that is the end of it—"

That is, having stabbed her antagonist with a poisoned knife, she was quite ready to forgive and even to pet him afterward. She was wont on these occasions to assume an air of solicitous kindness and affection which did not make the sufferer any more comfortable under the smart of his wounds. She talked to Marion, was very careful that she should be helped to the best of everything; and when they went out for a little shopping expedition after tea, she insisted on buying for Marion a pretty collar and necktie which she admired.

If Marion had "followed her impulses" as the heiress of McGregor took pride in doing, she would have thrown the parcel into the street. But she did not. She certainly accepted the present somewhat coolly, and with an internal resolution that she would bestow some present of equal value on Gerty at the very first opportunity. But she had too much respect and pity for Asahel to quarrel with Gerty if she could help it. She had a hard struggle with herself after she went to her room before she could be sure that she had forgiven the offence.

"If she had insulted me, I should not have minded so much, but to speak so of mother, and such an unprovoked insult! Only for distressing Asahel, I would go home to-morrow. But there is no use in thinking about that. Oh, if I could only forget it! But I can't do that, either, and I can't make myself forgiving as I know I ought to be. Oh, help me to do right. Help me to forgive as Thou hast so often forgiven me."

It was a long time before Marion could sleep, but she did at last, and woke to find that the work she could not do, had been done for her. The rest of the journey was very pleasant, and Marion could write to Bram with a good conscience that she had enjoyed it very much.

But as time went on, Marion began to grow homesick. She was very lonely. She missed the great family at the valley—the boys with their various interests, Betsy with her odd speeches and her various and vehement expressions of opinion on all possible subjects, the Overbeck little ones, always in and out. Above all, she missed the kindly, genial atmosphere of home, where everybody tried to add to the general happiness, where the pleasure of one was the happiness of all, and nobody took delight in the annoyance of another. Teasing had always been made a high crime and misdemeanour in the Van Alstine family code. Nor was this all she missed. Since Marion had fairly waked up from her long day-dream and began to live outside of herself, her mind had taken a great start. She had learned especially to appreciate intelligent conversation, and she had enjoyed a great deal of it during last winter.

Gerty had no lack of either intelligence or education, but she did not care for the things that the people at Hemlock Valley cared for—the things which made up life to the Campbells and Mrs. Andrews and the boys. She took no interest in books, none in her husband's business. She cared for nothing but talking about people. Every one of her acquaintances was pitilessly attacked and ruthlessly dissected. She contrived to know more about the private affairs of all the people in the village than Marion could have supposed possible, especially as she seemed to have very little to do with them.

Marion wondered at this. She had heard a good deal about the pleasant society at Rock Bottom, and as the days went on she was rather surprised that they had so few calls. Mrs. Landon and her daughters came to see Marion directly. She was a kind, gracious, motherly woman, and the girls were pleasant and cultivated, and Marion spent a day with them and found them very agreeable companions. Emily had a taste for drawing, and was working at it by herself. Marion was glad to be able to help her. She had a genuine and unusual talent for art, and under Mrs. Andrews's tuition, she had made remarkable progress in water-colour painting and sketching from nature. She found it very pleasant to go out sketching with Emily, and in the ravine above the town and down on the bank of the river they found abundance of studies. Marion, however, did not go as often as she would have liked, because Gerty complained of being left alone.

"I thought you had a good deal of society here?" said Marion, innocently, one day to Emily when they were out sketching together, "making a study" of the end of the old gray tannery and the bank on which it leaned.

"So we do," said Emily. "I don't believe there is a place of the size in the State where you will find more pleasant people than in Rock Bottom."