During this winter John Campbell did not often visit Drumloch, and when he did Mary had always a long list of shopping for Maggie to attend to in Glasgow. The change was pleasant to Maggie and it was also pleasant to Mary; for it cannot be denied, that she sometimes, at this period, chafed under her self-imposed duty. Every one has peculiarities; they may be admirable ones, and yet be irritating to those whose peculiarities run in a different direction. There were occasional days in which Mary felt that it was the first necessity of life to get rid of Maggie Promoter for a little while. But she never suffered Maggie to suspect this feeling; she was even at such times effusively kind to her, and generally compromised with her conscience by giving her _protégé_ some rich or pretty present. Thus the winter passed, and in May Mary went to London. John Campbell accompanied her; he had not been well for some months and he hoped the change of scene would benefit him. Also, he had a great pride in his niece, and he was no little pleased when she was presented at Court, and for some months reigned a belle in the very best Scottish society in the metropolis. At this time she had not much interest in Drumloch, though Maggie wrote to her daily, and Maggie's letters were wonderfully clever and amusing. And yet she had not received any special lessons; she had simply passed in a silent sort of way out of a region of ignorance, into one penetrated by the thought of educated men and women. There had been in her mentally a happy unconscious growth upward, like that of a well-watered plant. But no system of education could have been so excellently fitted for her development. The charge taught her self-reliance; the undisputed authority she wielded imparted to her manner ease and dignity, and that nameless something which is the result of assured position. There was also the advantage of a conscious, persistent effort on Maggie's own part; she tried to make every letter she wrote more neat, and clear, and interesting. She took pride in the arrangement of her hair, was anxious about the fit of her dresses, and did not regard the right mixture of colors in her costumes as a thing beneath her consideration. Early in July Mary returned to Drumloch. She had come as far as Glasgow with a party who were going to Oban. Oban was then little known. During the summer tourists of the wealthy and cultivated classes, who had read Scott's "Lord of Isles," came on short pilgrimages to the pretty clachan; but it was not, as now, the Charing Cross of the Highlands, where all the world you see. "The doctor and the scholar. The poor man with his penny fee. The rich man with his dollar. The priest who steals short holiday, The prince who goes incog, sir The schoolboy with his dreams of play, The sportsman with his dog, sir."