[CHAPTER XXII.]
"IT WON'T DO."
"I AM afraid it won't do, Marie! I wouldn't discourage you if I could help it, but indeed I don't think it would do to risk it. You see the strain was more severe than we thought at the time, and I fear that after all our care, we let you get up too soon. I am afraid, my dear, that it will never be a very strong back again."
"Then I must give up all thoughts of Tabriz."
"I think so. You see how these few and easy rides have hurt you. How would you bear weeks of horseback travel with the roughest accommodations, to say nothing of the work at the end? You would not wish to go to be a burden upon busy hands when you get there?"
"No, but—" Marion broke down and cried bitterly.
For three years she had been training and disciplining herself for the work of a foreign missionary.
There had been a good many changes in that time. Hector McGregor had gone to his rest in his ninetieth year, beloved and honoured by all who knew him. The lease expired with him; and though the duke offered to renew it or to sell the land on the most favourable terms, Alick had no desire to accept the offer. The farm was but a barren and stony one at the best, and only his father's attachment to the old place could have kept Alick on it so long. Then the duke offered him an agency, but this, though profitable in a pecuniary point of view, did not suit Alick any better. He loved travel. His eyes had long been turned wistfully toward California, and the time seemed, now to have come for him to gratify his longing for Western travel.
But what was to become of Aunt Barbara? Of course, if Alick was to settle in California, she would go to him.
"But in the mean time, I must have a home somewhere, and something to do in it," said Aunt Baby; "I can't be visiting all that time, you know, my dear."