A FRIEND IN NEED.

“Have hope, though clouds environ now,
And gladness hides her face in scorn;
Put thou the shadow from thy brow
No night but has its morn.” SCHILLER.

Things had come to a climax that afternoon. Marjory had driven by herself to the village to get some things that Lisbeth wanted, and also to buy some stamps for her uncle. Peter usually accompanied her on these expeditions, but to-day he was busy in the vine-house, and excused himself from attending upon his little mistress. She was quite accustomed to driving, however, and Brownie, the pony, was a very steady, well-behaved little animal, and a great pet of Marjory’s; so she started off in good spirits, Silky running beside the cart as usual. She did her errands in the village, finishing up at the post office, which was also the bakery and the most important building in the place. Mrs. Smylie, the baker’s wife and postmistress, served her with the stamps, and Marjory was about to say good-afternoon and leave the shop, when Mrs. Smylie opened a door and called out,

“Mary Ann, here’s Hunter’s Marjory; maybe ye’d like to see her.” And turning to Marjory, she explained, “Mary Ann’s just hame frae the schule for a wee bit.”

The Smylies were the most important people in the village of Heathermuir. Their mills supplied the countryside with flour, and their bakery was the only one of any size in the district. They had built their own house; it had a garden attached to it and a greenhouse; and, to crown all, their only child Mary Ann was to be brought up as a lady. With this object in view, the ambitious parents had sent the girl to a “Seminary for Young Ladies” at Morristown, some twenty miles away, and were greatly pleased with the result, feeling that Mary Ann was really quite a lady. That young person was delighted to come home and be worshipped by her admiring parents; and their idea that a real lady should never soil her fingers by household work, or indeed by work of any kind, suited her very well.

Mrs. Smylie, bursting with pride as her daughter appeared, watched the meeting between the two girls. Mary Ann’s dress was very much overtrimmed, her hair was frizzed into a spiky bush across her forehead, and her somewhat freckled face was composed into an expression of serene self-complacency. She was the only girl in the village who was at a boarding-school; not even Hunter’s Marjory, with all her airs, could boast this advantage, she thought; and Mary Ann felt her superiority, and gloried in it.

Mrs. Smylie noted with great pride that the hand her daughter held out to Marjory was white and delicate in great contrast to Marjory’s brown one. “But then,” she reflected, “the puir bairn hasna got her mither to watch her like oor Mary Ann has. Bless me! how the lassie glowers! Mary Ann has the biggest share o’ manners onyways.”

It must be confessed that Marjory was “glowering.” She regarded the overdressed girl with aversion, answered her mincingly-spoken “How do you do, Marjory?” very curtly, and continued to “glower,” as Mrs. Smylie described it, without saying another word.

“Won’t you come into the house?” asked Mary Ann, and Marjory went.

She did not care about these people; she had never liked Mary Ann, and could hardly bear to look at her now, or listen to her affected way of talking. Still, she did not wish to be rude, so she followed Mary Ann through the shop into the house, and was ushered into the sitting-room, or parlour as it was called. The room was like Mary Ann’s dress full of all sorts of bright colours and gaudy ornaments of poor quality.

There was one thing about Mary Ann which interested Marjory profoundly, and that was her school experience. She felt that she would like to question the girl about it, and yet was too proud to betray her curiosity by bringing up the subject. Mary Ann, however, saved her the trouble, for as soon as they were seated she began at once,

“Why don’t your uncle send you to school? Any one would think a great girl like you ought to be sent to school. Why don’t he send you?”

“Uncle doesn’t wish me to go to school.”

“Maybe he don’t want to pay the fees,” said Mary Ann.

Marjory said nothing.

“I learn French and German and music. I’m getting on fine with the piano, and papa’s going to buy me one of my own soon. You haven’t got a piano at Hunters’ Brae, have you?”

“No,” said Marjory shortly.

As a matter of fact there was a piano at Hunters’ Brae, but it was kept in the room that had been her mother’s a room that Marjory was not allowed to enter. For reasons of his own the doctor had forbidden Marjory to go into it. She should do so on her fifteenth birthday, but not before. Lisbeth went in once a week with pail, broom, and duster, but she always carefully locked the door behind her, and Marjory knew nothing of the room or its contents. “Some bonnie day,” was all that the old woman would say when she questioned her.

Mary Ann continued,

“It seems a shame you can’t be made a lady of too.”

“I can be a lady without going to school,” said Marjory sulkily.

The other looked at her in surprise.

“Oh no, you can’t. Who is there to teach you? You have to learn manners and deportment and accomplishments and all that sort of thing first. I don’t see that you’ve got any chance here, you poor little thing,” patronizingly.

“I don’t care,” said Marjory, knowing in her heart that she did care beyond everything, and that her greatest desire was to learn all sorts of things. “I don’t care a pin,” she repeated.

“Yes, you do, or you wouldn’t get so red,” said Mary Ann provokingly. Then she continued, “Your uncle’s queer, isn’t he?”

“What do you mean by ’queer’?”

“Well queer in his head, you know. People say he is, and, anyhow, he does queer things keeping that room shut up, and all that. I should say he must be a little bit mad.”

“He isn’t,” indignantly. “He’s a very clever, celebrated man.”

Mary Ann went off into peals of laughter.

“Oh dear! who told you that?” she cried at last.

“Lisbeth,” defiantly.

Another peal of laughter greeted this statement.

“It really is too funny; you little simpleton, to believe such a thing. Why, if he was celebrated, he would be rich enough to send you to school, and he wouldn’t let you sew and dust the way you do, just like any village girl. I never dust; mamma doesn’t wish me to.” And Mary Ann looked at her white hands admiringly, and shot a glance, which Marjory felt rather than saw, at the brown ones nervously clasping and unclasping themselves.

“I wonder,” continued her tormentor, “that you don’t insist on being sent to school, so that you could learn to earn your own living. I’ve heard mamma say your uncle gets no money for your keep; no letters ever come from foreign parts from your father. It must be strange to have a father you’ve never seen. It must be horrid to be like you, because, really, when you come to think of it, you are no better off than a charity child, are you?”

But Mary Ann had gone too far. A tempest was raging in Marjory’s heart, and as soon as she could find her voice, which seemed suddenly to have deserted her, she cried,

“You are a beast, Mary Ann Smylie, and I hate you; and although I haven’t been to school, I don’t say ‘if he was,’ and ‘don’t’ instead of doesn’t.” And with this parting shot Marjory rushed through the shop and jumped into the cart; and Brownie, infected by his mistress’s excitement, galloped nearly all the way home, his unusual haste and Silky’s sympathetic barking causing quite a commotion in the sleepy, quiet village.

Arrived home, Marjory ran to her uncle’s study, knocked loudly at the door, and hardly waiting for permission, went in, leaving Silky, breathless and panting, outside.

The doctor was sitting in his armchair in his favourite attitude his legs crossed, the tips of his fingers meeting, his eyes fixed upon them, but his thoughts far away. As a matter of fact he was thinking of Marjory at this very moment, of his visit to the Foresters, and the plans they had been making for the two girls.

“Well, Marjory, what is it?” he asked kindly, as the excited girl stood before him. She was trembling with agitation, her cheeks were scarlet, and her dark eyes flashed upon her uncle as she replied,

“I want you to send me to school. I don’t want to live on your charity any longer. I never knew I was till to-day,” with a sob; then, piteously, “Won’t you send me to school, Uncle George?”

“My dear child!” exclaimed the doctor, “what is all this? Who has been talking to you and putting such nonsense into your head?” looking at his niece in astonishment.

The quiet, usually almost sullen girl was transformed into a passionate little fury for the time being, and her uncle hardly recognized her. She burst out again,

“Mary Ann Smylie looks down on me because I don’t go to school. She says I can’t ever be a lady; and she says that you get no money for my keep, and that I am no better than a charity child. I want to learn what other girls learn. I want you to send me to school, and I want you to tell me about my father, and to let me go into my mother’s room!”

The child almost screamed these last words, and stamped upon the floor to emphasize them.

The doctor, now thoroughly aroused, rose from his chair, saying very sternly,

“Marjory, I cannot alter my decision upon these matters. I do not wish you to go to school. I refuse to tell you any more than you have already been told about your father. I have promised that you shall go into your mother’s room and take possession of it on your fifteenth birthday. That is enough. I am grieved that you should have listened to vulgar gossip about our affairs; but I may tell you that your mother left money to provide for you ten times over, if need be.”

“Then you are unkind and cruel not to use it to send me to school and let me have what other girls have,” cried Marjory passionately.

“Marjory,” said her uncle quietly, “I cannot listen to you while you are in this mood. You had better go, and come back again when you can talk more reasonably.”

“Yes, I will go, and I wish I need never come back. I hate everything, and I wish I were dead.”

With these words she flung out of the room, rushed blindly through the house into the garden and on into the wood, where she threw herself down under a tree, and sobbed out her grief to the faithful Silky until Mrs. Forester found her.

Dr. Hunter was very much troubled and puzzled by his niece’s behaviour. Never before had she given way to such an outburst. He had not believed her capable of such a storm of passion, and felt himself quite at a loss. He was grieved and shocked beyond measure by Marjory’s words. “Unkind, cruel,” he muttered to himself. “Surely not. I love the little thing as though she were my own.” And while Marjory was weeping bitterly under the tree in the wood, her uncle, very sorrowful and thoughtful, was pacing up and down his study wondering what he could do for the best. It seemed all the more grievous as, only that afternoon, he had been making plans for Marjory with Mrs. Forester that she should share Blanche’s lessons and enjoy her companionship.

Mrs. Forester had heard much of the doctor and his niece from the mutual friend in London who had written to the doctor, and she knew exactly how to manage things, so that in the course of one short hour plans were made which were to alter Marjory’s whole existence.

But she, poor child, knew nothing of this, and her grief was bitter the more so as she slowly realized that she had been wrong to give way to her passion. First, she had called Mary Ann Smylie a beast. Well, she had been very much shocked once to hear a child in the street use that word to another, but she herself had used it quite easily, and still felt as if she would like to use it again; but, worst of all, she had called her uncle unkind and cruel. Thinking over the scene in the study, she remembered the look on his face as she said these words. “It was as if I had struck him,” she thought; and then came more tears and sobs.

Mrs. Forester’s motherly heart yearned over the girl as she made her confession. Brokenly and with many tears the story was told, and relief came to Marjory in the telling of it. Blanche, with instinctive tact, had walked away a little distance with Silky, so that Marjory should feel free to talk to her mother. When the recital was over, Mrs. Forester said cheerfully, “I told you I thought I should be able to help you. First of all, I have got some delightful news for you. Only to-day your uncle and I have been making plans for you to share in Blanche’s lessons. You are to learn everything that she does, including French and music,” with a smile at the recollection of her battle against the doctor’s prejudices.

A breathless “oh” was all that Marjory could say.

Mrs. Forester continued,

“Blanche has a very good, kind governess. Unfortunately, she has rather an ugly name, and it may make you smile. It is Waspe W, a, s, p, e not pretty, is it? But she is as sweet as she can be, and very accomplished, and Blanche gets on nicely with her. It will be much more interesting for Blanche to have some one to share her lessons with, and good for you too, won’t it?”

“Oh, indeed it will!” replied Marjory, bewildered by this wonderful piece of news.

“And in return for this I want you to teach Blanche all you can.”

“I?” asked Marjory in surprise.

“Yes, you,” with a smile at the girl’s puzzled expression. “Blanche is a little too much like her name at present; she isn’t very strong. Living in London didn’t suit her, and it is for her sake that we have come to live here. I want you to show her all your favourite nooks and corners, to teach her all you know about the birds and flowers, and to let her help you in your garden. Will you do this, and keep her out of doors as much as you can?”

“I shall love it!” cried Marjory emphatically. “It’s like a dream, and seems too good to be true.”

“Now, my child,” continued Mrs. Forester seriously, “listen to me. I think you have been doing your uncle a great injustice. You say you called him unkind and cruel; he is neither the one nor the other.”

“I know,” replied Marjory in a low voice.

“He is very fond of you,” said Mrs. Forester.

Marjory looked up quickly.

“He never says so,” she objected.

“Ah!” said Mrs. Forester, “now we have got to the root of the whole matter. So, then, just because her uncle doesn’t say, ’Marjory, I am very fond of you,’ therefore Marjory thinks that he doesn’t care for her very much.”

Marjory nodded.

“My dear child, you never made a greater mistake. It is not in your uncle’s nature to say much; he is content with doing things for you. This afternoon he talked of nothing but his plans for you, his ideas for your education how his first care has been that you should grow strong and healthy amongst those outdoor things that you love. For your sake he has been content to stay in this obscure place, when he would receive the recognition he is entitled to if he went more into the world. His very meals he takes at times which he considers best for you. Look at your frock. Perhaps you don’t think much of it, but let me tell you it is made of the very best tweed that Scotland can produce. Your boots are strong and sensible-looking, but they are of the finest quality of leather; your stockings are the best that money can buy. Let me see your handkerchief. Ah! I thought so,” as Marjory obediently produced from her pocket the little hard, wet ball her tears had made. “This is a plain handkerchief, but so fine that it is fit for a princess to use. I don’t suppose you ever thought about these things; but it must mean a great deal of trouble and care to your uncle to get them for you. He told me he looks after your wardrobe himself. Now, haven’t I proved that he thinks about you a great deal?”

Marjory nodded.

“Don’t you believe that, even if your mother had not left you provided for, your uncle would have been glad to keep you that he would never have felt you a burden?”

“I don’t know,” said Marjory slowly. She was beginning to see her uncle in a new light, but she could not see him as he really was just yet.

“Well, you will know some day. There are many things which you are too young to understand, and you must try to trust in your uncle’s knowing what is best for you in the matter of your father, who will return to you some day, I hope.”

“Oh! do you really think that is possible?” cried Marjory. “Could it ever happen?”

“Certainly it might. I don’t see any reason at all why you shouldn’t hope for his coming. And if you will promise to be very patient, and to hope for the best, I will tell you something very nice that I heard said about your father a little while ago.”

Marjory’s eyes grew big with wonder. “Oh, do tell me. Indeed I will try to be patient.”

“Well, an old friend of mine in London, who knows your uncle, and met your father long ago, said to me, ’A fine fellow was Hugh Davidson. I always feel that he may turn up again some day.’”

Mrs. Forester did not repeat other words said at the same time namely, that “Hunter was always jealous, and would see no good in him;” but she felt justified in telling Marjory what she did, for she well knew how the girl would treasure the words, and how they might often comfort and encourage her.

“Oh! that is good,” said Marjory. “I do thank you for telling me.” And she squeezed her friend’s hand.

“Now you must try to be very patient and hopeful. If God sees fit, be sure that He will give your father to you for your very own some day. In the meantime you must do all you can to be the sort of girl that a father would be proud of; and, Marjory, I have been thinking that your uncle might say the same of you as you do of him. You are fond of him, really, aren’t you?”

“Yes, of course,” assented Marjory.

“Well, do you ever tell him so?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t dare to.”

“Nonsense! I suppose you would quite like it if he were to put his arms round you and call you his dear little Marjory?”

“Yes.” Marjory was quite sure that she would like it very much, but she could hardly imagine such a thing happening.

“Well, do you ever go near enough to him to let him do it if he wanted to, or do you simply give him your cheek to kiss, morning and evening, and nothing more?”

“Yes, that’s just what I do,” confessed Marjory, laughing.

“Then perhaps your poor uncle thinks that you consider yourself too big to be kissed and hugged, and so he doesn’t do it. You can’t blame him, you know; if you just give him a little peck, and run away, you don’t give him a chance. You take my advice: try to be a little more loving in your manner towards him, and it will soon make a difference. Perhaps you don’t like a stranger to speak so plainly to you, but I have heard so much about you that I don’t feel like a stranger at all. But I must be going now. Dr. Hunter has invited Blanche to come to tea with you to-morrow, and I hope this will be the beginning of a brighter life for you, my child. Good-bye, dear,” kissing her. “Come, Blanche; we must be going now.”

The girls bade each other good-bye somewhat shyly, while Silky looked on approvingly, wagging his tail, as if he knew that in some way these strangers had been good to his mistress; and when they were gone he turned to Marjory and rubbed his soft, wet nose against her hand as if to say, “It’s all right now, isn’t it?” Marjory returned the dog’s caress, and walked slowly and thoughtfully towards the house.