The household is at once thrown into a confusion of packing, for by seven o’clock next morning it is necessary to be in Glasgow to catch the Oban steamer _Columba_, which seems rather a roundabout route for residenters at Helensburgh. At this early hour the party punctually embark, to be carried admiringly down the scenery of the Clyde, though, indeed, the faithful steward and housekeeper, always in attendance, shake their heads in sad harmony at every stage over the engines and smoke stacks that are overshadowing good old Highland customs, the sole example of which here given is unhappily referred to the Orkney Kirkwall. Messrs. MacBrayne have no cause of complaint as to praise of the steamer and her accommodations; but the proprietors of Murray’s _Guide_, with which the party are provided rather than Black’s, might find ground of action in the French printers’ libellous misspellings of names. That work is duly drawn on for notices of Dumbarton Castle, of Greenock, of ruined strongholds, and of the distant crests of Arran and Ailsa Craig. The passengers hold stiffly aloof in groups, except of course some French tourists, who bring their native sociability with them; but there is none of the British _morgue_ about Partridge, when he claps his hands in applause at the sight of a tower ruined for the MacDouglases by his young mistress’ clan. They sail safely through the Kyles of Bute, past Ardrishaig, by the Crinan Canal, then up the Hebrides archipelago to Oban, where they install themselves, regardless of expense, in the best rooms of the Caledonian Hotel, awaiting the first fine sunset to catch the green ray. At this _ville des bains_, not more than “a hundred and fifty years old,” in August crowded with bathers, who do not satisfy French ideas of propriety by a bathing costume _souvent trop rudimentaire_, our friends soon fall in with Aristobulus Ursiclos, a mere Lowlander, who wears no kilt but, on the contrary, aluminium spectacles and such like, and having graduated both at Oxford and Edinburgh, is a scientist _pour rire_, not to say a prig and pedant of the darkest dye, seizing every chance to lecture on meteorology, mineralogy, chemistry, astronomy, in short _de omni re scibili_. It goes without saying that Miss Campbell at first sight takes a strong dislike to this false hero, who at once sets about playing the superior person over such a childish fancy as the green ray, also excites her contempt by his awkwardness at the British game of “crocket.” Equally of course, a true hero has already been provided, a ram caught in one of the handy thickets of romance as due sacrifice to Hymen. This is Oliver Sinclair, a young and sympathetic artist, who sends notes of his travels to the celebrated _Edinburgh Review_, but at present has nothing more pressing on hand than to attach himself to the party.