"'Go on, Marion. Yours is a blessed work. God will protect you in it.' Oh, how that benediction has encouraged me!"
What could Mr. Asbury answer to such pleading?
And so Marion had gone on, from step to step, till Mr. Williamson was fain to resign his ward to other and firmer hands. Her aunt, having exhausted all the adjectives in her denunciations, and having informed her thousand and one friends that her niece was a bigoted fanatic, who, if permitted, would convert their house into an asylum for paupers, coolly turned her back upon her, entirely ignoring her existence.
In consequence of all this, Marion's twenty-first birthday found her in apartments of her own, with Hepsey for her confidential adviser; not satisfied, as her aunt explained, with a life of luxurious refinement, such as befitted her wealth and position in society, but actually engaged as music teacher in Madame La Vergne's institute.
This last step, indeed, had been earnestly protested against by her Uncle Asbury, and she was obliged to bring all her powers of coaxing, arguing, and pleading to bear upon him before he would yield a reluctant consent.
"These young girls are just entering life," was her concluding plea, "without either chart or compass to guide them. They will by and by exert a powerful influence either for good or evil. In no other way can I so readily gain an influence over them. If I can win only one of them to higher aims in life, will it not be worth the effort?"
Even Mrs. Asbury expostulated with her niece. "You are free," she urged, "to go into any society you please, and you surely can find young ladies quite as much in need of good influences as those connected with Madame La Vergne's school. You will, when too late, perhaps, find it very irksome to be confined to certain hours."
"Now aunty, dear, don't you turn against me. I have thought so much of this plan, and my conscience approves, but I want your approval also. Well, I may as well confess it; there are certain reasons why I want to influence these particular girls, two of whom are in danger. They were my pets when I was their schoolmate, and think I have already gained their confidence."
"After all that is said," resumed Mr. Asbury "you have power to do as you please. You are absolutely your own mistress, with an independent fortune, but—"
Marion drew up her queenly form and for an instant looked seriously displeased, but quickly recovering herself, said, "I'm sure, uncle, you do not mean to hurt me. You and aunty are all I have who really and truly love me, so if you positively refuse your consent to my devoting a few hours in a day to an employment which is congenial to me, with the hope of being useful to two motherless girls, I will relinquish my project."