The Ramsays, mother and son, had heard of Primrose’s presence at Drumsheugh, and were thoroughly acquiescent and complacent, though not in equal degrees. The laird was simply well pleased that Peggy should have good company, be acknowledged by his kin, and become acquainted with one of the best of them. It was left for his mother to cry out: ‘Primrose Ramsay at Drumsheugh! That beats all! Now all will go well with my son’s wife.’ To do the old lady justice, she had been accustoming herself more and more to think and speak of Peggy as ‘my son’s wife’; while she did so, she took the girl nearer to her heart, and made Peggy’s joys and sorrows more her own. ‘I would have given ten years of my dowager’s jointure to have said before to Primrose, “Come and help us,” but I had not the face. Primrose Ramsay is a fine as well as a clever creature.’ Mrs. Ramsay reflected further: ‘Who but she would have looked over all former shortcomings and been the first to hold out her hand to Peggy? I see now what a wife Primrose would have made to Jamie, but it was not to be.’ No doubt the fatalistic sentence had been to a considerable extent worked out by the speaker. For it had been on the cards that Jamie Ramsay might have been won from Peggy in the earlier stages of their acquaintance, and his allegiance transferred to Primrose, if that most winning young woman--at once strong and sweet--had continued thrown in his way as a visitor at Drumsheugh. Still, Mrs. Ramsay, though rather an exceptionally truthful woman, consoled herself by repeating, with a shake of the head, ‘It was not to be,’ slurring over all the details in the failure of such a marriage, and adding briskly, ‘But the next best thing is for Primrose to have taken Mrs. Jamie in hand.’ So long as Drumsheugh and his mother used the privilege of rare travellers in pro-longing their travels, Miss Ramsay had to content herself with showing off Peggy in the first blush of her rapid improvement to Balcairnie. Generous man though he was, he sometimes sighed in the middle of his unaffected satisfaction--not so much for Peggy as for that charmed region into which she was fast passing, and which he might never enter. No fairy princess or gifted woman, however good, would quit her rank to train his clumsy hands and feet and tongue, to refine his plain manners and rude tastes. But other company besides Balcairnie now came freely to Drumsheugh. Primrose’s presence there made the greatest difference in this respect to Peggy. If the laird’s cousin--a sensible, well-conducted, well-educated, young lady like Miss Ramsay, went and stayed with his wife, the scandals against her must have been grossly exaggerated. She must have been more sinned against than sinning: Miss Ramsay had taken care to remedy all that was wrong, and if she supported ‘Lady Peggy’ thus cordially, Drumsheugh’s neighbours could do no less than back her a little, for the sake of the laird and his mother.