On her first coming, she had told Aunt Betty the day the vacation was over, and evidently she was expected to stay until then; but on the morning of the seventh day she became desperate, and for want of any other excuse hit upon one that would be most displeasing to her aunt.
“You don’t like to have me study my Greek here, Aunt Betty,” she said; “and, as I must review it before the term begins, I think I had better go back now.”
Aunt Betty put her steel-bowed spectacles high up on her nose, and, after looking at her silently for a moment, said,— 161
“I don’t take no stock in your Greek.”
Marion laughed good-naturedly. “If you only would let me read it to you,” she said, “you would like it as well as I do; it’s so soft and beautiful.”
“What’s the matter with your Bible? Isn’t that good enough for you?”
“But, Aunt Betty, you don’t understand.”
But Aunt Betty did understand enough to be very sure she did not want Marion to go, so she turned abruptly on her heel, and hid herself in the depths of the pantry.
Marion stood for a moment undecided what to do, then, seeing that if she would go that day she had very little time to lose, she went up-stairs, packed her valise, and the next time she saw her aunt was ready for her journey back.
The prospect of a mile walk through the half-broken roads, up steep hills, and down into drifted valleys, would have shown Marion the difficulties had she been a New Englander; but as she was not, her courage did not fail in the least when, without a word more, or any sign of a good-by from Aunt Betty, she opened the door, letting in a cold she was a stranger to, and went out into it.