The heiress of McGregor

by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

She left the room as she spoke.

Therese, with her usual tact, had withdrawn at the beginning of the dialogue, and when Marion found herself alone she began to consider her words as usual, and to reflect that Aunt Christian would think her very heartless for being so ready to leave her home.

But her pleasure in the prospect before her was too great to allow her to torment herself very long on that account. How splendid it would be! She would be the only girl in a family of boys. That of itself would be a distinction. She resolved at once that she would be a model only sister. No doubt the boys were rough cubs, rude to each other, careless and overbearing, if not absolutely unkind to their stepmother. Mr. Van Alstine was a hemlock tanner as his father and grandfather had been before him, and by consequence had lived in the woods all his life. Of course he was an ignorant man, and his sons would be like him. There would probably be a rude plenty, but no refinement or elegance: the boys would sit with their hats on, eat with their knives, and put their feet on the mantel-piece. She would be the refining and civilizing influence which should support her feeble mother, conciliate the rough father-in-law and convert by degrees this den of bears into a household of gentlemen. She would support the teacher's authority, sympathize with her trials and tastes and smooth the roughness of her way.

"And won't I be glad to tell Miss Oliver that I am not coming to school any more! She thought she was going to turn me off, and now I shall turn her off instead."

Such was the somewhat inconsistent conclusion to Marion's reflections, but she saw no inconsistency. The career for which she had been sighing had come to her unsought. She was going to have the new place and the new "beginning" she had wished for, and to leave all her troubles behind her.

Marion was leaning out of her window as she indulged in these pleasing dreams, when she suddenly became aware that her case was being discussed in the room below. It was not very dignified to listen, but the temptation to know what her friends really thought of the project was strong.

"I think myself the child had better go," said her grandfather. "The truth is we have spoiled her here among us, and her faults are partly ours."

"I have not meant to spoil her," said Miss Baby.

"No, you have meant to do nothing but what was right, I am sure, but you have after all made yourself a kind of slave to Marion. You have always taken every stick and stone out of her way; you have taken on yourself all the work that was anyway hard or disagreeable, and left to her only that which was light and easy. You have denied your own tastes and fancies, that hers might be gratified; and worked far harder than you ought in order that she might have time to study. We have all done it, more or less, but you most of all. We have spoiled the child among us, there is no denying it, and we ought not to expect her to be grateful for the spoiling."

"You know I thought it would be better to keep Marion at home and at work this summer," said Alick; "and something Miss Oliver told me yesterday has confirmed me in my opinion. She says Marion has not done well at all the last year, and that she is injuring the school by her bad example. I thought to speak to Marion about the matter, but as she is to go away so soon, perhaps it is not worth while."