The heiress of McGregor

by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

He died at last of fever, leaving his wife alone, with her one little girl, in Coaltown, in Pennsylvania, without money or acquaintance. Here she was found by a certain Mr. Van Alstine who had a great leather manufactory out in the hemlock woods, and engaged as a companion and housekeeper for his ailing wife. Eiley lived with Mrs. Van Alstine, nursed her, and took care of her children till the lady died, and the family was broken up for a time. Then she came home. She was still Eiley McGregor, for her husband had been a faraway cousin of the same name.

But after two years Mr. Van Alstine grew weary of living alone and having his children scattered, so he got them together once more and came to ask Eiley to be a mother to them. After some doubts and misgivings, Eiley consented. Mr. Van Alstine would gladly have taken Marion into the bargain, but old Hector had grown very fond of the little girl and begged to keep her, and so it was settled for the time.

The arrangement had never been altered. Mrs. Van Alstine had been married thirteen years, and had two boys of her own besides a host of step-sons, but Marion remained with her grandfather, and had never even paid a visit to Hemlock Valley, where her mother lived. Mrs. Van Alstine had been twice at home during the time, and kept up a close correspondence with her own family; but every time anything was said about claiming Marion, Aunt Barbara begged off. It was a pity to take Marion from Miss Oliver's school, where she was doing so well. It was a long journey. Eiley had her hands full already, and it was not good for a girl to be the only one among such a throng of lads. In short, Barbara had her way in this, as she did in most family matters. And Marion remained at the old red house, which she would have liked to turn into an ancient baronial mansion or a frowning Gothic pile.

The heiress of McGregor was in need of comfort, for a very unromantic misfortune had befallen her. She had been kept after school to finish her arithmetic lesson. Never in all her reading had Marion come across a similar instance of persecution. True, Adeline had been confined in an old castle, but that carried its own consolation with it. Amanda had escaped from her persecutors by jumping from a window into the arms of a faithful retainer in a boat (no very dangerous feat, judging from the illustration, since the boat needed only to be turned crosswise to bridge the stream completely). But as Adeline turned up in the very next chapter dressed in white and playing on the harp, it was to be presumed she was not greatly the worse. But to be kept after school—kept in like any little school-girl or boy to do a set of sums (examples had not yet invaded Miss Oliver's school) which she could easily have accomplished in thirty minutes!

No wonder Marion was in need of consolation. She had not found much satisfaction, either, in that fit of sulks in which she had indulged.

Miss Oliver waited for her exactly one half hour, then she said with decision,—

"I cannot wait for you any longer, Marion. You might easily have finished your lesson in half an hour if you had chosen to apply yourself, but I cannot let you waste your time as well as my own. You can go now, but you must not come to school again till your lesson is done and written out."

So saying, Miss Oliver dismissed Marion with small ceremony, locked the school-house and went to sewing-society.

As Marion turned the corner of the hill which hid her father's house from the village, she came upon a girl of her own age who seemed to have just risen from a stone by the wayside and was lifting a somewhat heavy and cumbrous basket. She was a thin, dark child with black hair which curled and twisted out of the sober braid in which its owner had tried to confine it, which made little rings round her face and neck and caught the brim of her hat. She had heavy black eyebrows which nearly came together over her nose, and very dark eyes which were independent in their way and could laugh merrily when all the rest of the face was composed to a demure calmness. She was plainly dressed, but everything she had on, from her slightly washed-out calico frock to her little black straw hat, was worn with a certain air of spruceness, and even elegance.

"Oh, Marion, how glad I am! Now I shall have company part of the way," she exclaimed, in a high, clear voice and with something of a foreign accent. "But what has kept you so late? Our Kitty was at home nearly an hour ago."