The sight would disturb Balcairnie in his worship. ‘If I had thocht she would be left like this--what for doesna Drumsheugh come hame and look after her?’ He would enter silent, broken, indignant protests. ‘But the laird, puir fally, canna help himsel’;’ the loyal yeoman would correct his assumption, ‘and puir Peggy was ay a saft, silly quean to let hersel’ be put upon.’ The late spring was waning into early summer; the budding roses were replacing the withering lilies alike in Drumsheugh and Balcairnie gardens, and still the laird tarried abroad, though the news was always of his amendment, while every day Peggy was drifting into more heavy-hearted helplessness on her own account and a falser report in the mouths of her neighbours. CHAPTER VII. ‘HUNTINGTOWER.’ Primrose Ramsay bore a Christian name which was not altogether uncommon among the Scotch-women of her era. It was also the surname of the excellent vicar of Wakefield and of a noble Scotch family, and the ordinary title of the sweetest and most welcome of spring flowers. She was, as Jenny Hedderwick had reported, on a friendly visit to young Mrs. Forsyth, the doctor’s wife in Craigie. Primrose was not like her namesake and emblem, strictly fair to see, but she was cheery as ever was pinched daisy in February, promising to close the gloomy winter and herald the glad summer. She was a little, pale, somewhat meagre girl, whom a passer-by might have stigmatised as insignificant-looking. Her spirit, sense, and kindness, and not her face, constituted her fortune, and it was only when mind and heart took possession of her slight, though wiry, frame, coloured her ordinarily colourless cheeks, and kindled up her grey eyes that they looked handsome. Primrose Ramsay was valued even in the matter of personal appearance exactly in proportion as she was known. Slight acquaintances thought little of her, intimate friends agreed to admire her very defects, and the old relation who had brought up the orphan girl, and with whom she usually resided, set such store upon her that Mrs. Purvis grudged Primrose out of her sight, and confidently believed her the attraction of all eyes and hearts, the greatest beauty, and the most virtuous, charming young woman in the world. Withal, there was something about Primrose Ramsay--unprotected, poor, unassuming, and kindly as she was--which prevented anyone from taking liberties with her; something which daunted the coarse and shallow, and rendered her, on occasions, as formidable as her aunt, the old Lady of Drumsheugh, could prove. Primrose won respect in her youth, and exercised influence wherever she went.