"I have heard you speak much of Mr. Campbell, I would like well to see
him."
"You should have seen him ere this, Maggie; but I was waiting until
--until, you looked and spoke as you do this morning;" and she rose and
kissed the blush of Maggie's cheek, and then turned the conversation to
the dark tartans which she thought would be the best material for
travelling dresses. "And we want them very prettily made," she added, with
a rising color, "for it is fine folk we are going to meet, Maggie--Lord
John Forfar, and Captain Manners, and Lady Emma Bruce, and Miss Napier; so
you see, Miss Promoter and Miss Campbell must dress accordingly."
Maggie was young enough and happy enough to feel all the excitement of the
proposed trip. Still she was troubled about her tryst with Allan. Oban and
the Highlands were so far away. In Pittenloch, her mother, coming from
Skye, had been looked upon almost as a foreigner. She was quite unable to
compute the distances; she knew nothing of the time it would take to
travel them: she felt ashamed to show anxiety to Mary on the matter. "But
I'll trust my way to His ordering. He'll no let me be too late for any
good thing He wills me;" and having thus settled the subject in her heart,
she went about the necessary preparations in a joy of anticipation, which
made Mary feel how pleasant it would be to have so fresh and charming a
companion.
Two weeks afterward they were in Oban, watching from the heights the
exquisite bay, and the lovely isle of Kerrera, the high mountains of Mull,
and Ossian's "Misty Morven." The Petrel, a cutter yacht of forty tons, was
lying at anchor. In the morning they were to start for a glimpse of the
Atlantic across the purple bogs of the Lews; going by way of Mull and
Canna, and swinging round Barra Head, toward the red, rent bastions of
Skye. Through that charmful circle of the outer isles, with their
slumbrous tarns, and meres, and treeless solitudes they went. And oh, how
full of strange and dreamy beauty were the long quiet summer days in that
land of mystic forgetfulness! that great, secret land of waters, with its
irresistible tides, and the constant ocean murmur haunting it like a
spirit voice.
Maggie enjoyed them with all her soul, though she did not speak in italics
about her feelings; perhaps she did not know very well how to express
herself. Forty years ago, even highly educated women did not rave about
scenery, they knew nothing of shadows and colors, nothing of "effects"
scarped, jagged and rifted. Neither had they any uneasy consciousness that
they ought to blend the simple delights of fresh air, fresh scenes, and
pleasant company, with some higher kind of recreation.