Primrose had been so far reared in intellectual circles that she possessed something like a large portable library of her own, which she generally carried about with her at the foot of her father’s great hair trunk; for, apart from the Bible in which she read as regularly as Peggy read in hers, it was to these other books Primrose had recourse to draw fresh springs of wisdom and happiness. She had not only ‘Hannah More’s Essays’ and ‘Dr. Gregory’s Advice to his Daughter,’ she had sets of ‘Sir Charles Grandison’ and ‘Evelina.’ The two novels represented all fiction to the girl, and she read in them with as inexhaustible sympathy and delight as her grandmother had found for the interminable adventures of the grand Cyrus. During Primrose’s stay in Craigie she found less need for her books than she was wont to do on a rainy day, not only because Mrs. Forsyth was no reader, but because Dr. Forsyth, being something of a naturalist, had indulged himself in buying copies of ‘Bewick’s British Birds’ and ‘White’s Natural History of Selborne.’ These offered new treasures to Primrose Ramsay’s quickness of observation and fondness for nature. ‘Bewick’s Birds’ bore a practical result to both Mrs. Forsyth and Primrose, and had a strange collateral bearing--presumably not intended by the author--on certain future events in more than one human history. The ladies were stimulated by the inspection of the life-like engravings to a fresh enterprise for their ingenious brains and fingers--not that the device was altogether original. Feather tippets had become almost as much the fashion as muslin ruffles. But Mrs. Forsyth and Primrose would make themselves such tippets as had seldom been seen even in the wardrobes of the Duchess of Portland and Mrs. Delany. The whole country-side was to be ransacked for a variety of feathers. The doctor’s gig was to be put in requisition to carry the collectors to different poultry yards, from which they were to beg, borrow, and, it is to be feared, when temptation waxed too strong, steal, their spoil. Mrs. Forsyth and Primrose’s minds became as stuffed with feathers as if the minds had been so many beds and pillows for mortal aches and bruises. The girls, even the doctor, who did not often consent to lose sight of the superior enlightenment and dignity of his college, medical school, and learned profession, with the burden of responsibility involved in a promising practice, grew zealously engrossed and affected, as only young, eager, care-free natures could be usurped and excited by such a trifle.