Lady Victoria Campbell

10 CHILDHOOD AND HOME
her sunny acceptance of her disabilities realised how
much she had to learn in the great school of patience,
or how much suffering was involved in the constant
double exertion all movement cost her.
Fortunately, the disablement came early, and
became a second nature, but it never ceased to be a
conscious trial ; one she rarely spoke of as a thorn
in the flesh, but it was one, and she could never forget
the difficulties which encompassed her.
Her couch became to her the place where she
learned the deepest and highest converse with the
life unseen, and in the heights and depths her spirit
found rest and peace. She understood what her
cross, so gallantly borne, had brought into her own
life, an experience which made her a guide and help
to others.
To many the thought of her is associated with the
figure prone on the sofa, so alert in face and
action, and her cheery voice going out in welcome ;
and only since she has gone have they fully realised
that that couch had become to her and to those who
gathered round her bright, sympathetic presence, a
place which might indeed be called " Bethel."
As a child, she was encouraged as far as possible to
live the life of the family at Inveraray. She joined
her sisters in their rides. It required courage in
those who sent her forth, strapped into a Spanish
saddle on the back of one of those island ponies she
was to know more about in her future life. She
was as fearless a rider of the horse as of the ocean
waves, and her steed was always pushed well to the