Lady Victoria Campbell

THE HOUSEHOLD FRIENDS 19
puzzled), half vexed feeling when my father remarked,
' Kingie was not good looking.' The shock was so
great as to evoke a burst of laughter, as he called on
my artistic sense to describe in her anything of
* beauty/
" Well ! It was true her eyes were small and brown,
and her short sight obliged her to use spectacles, in
which we said she slept. The framework of the face
was wide, and her complexion was a dead white,
and in early youth her hair was probably auburn.
" She had a refined, sensitive mouth and good teeth.
(I believe they were false ; if so, they grew as I remem-
ber them !) No one can deny the trim form, the quick,
light step. She had the most perfect tact, ever ready
for speech or silence, and her smile was one of the most
gracious and sunny that ever broke over the face of
woman, and yet how stern she could be ! Brought
up under the rigid Calvinistic roof of her father,
John King, one could hear the echoes of his voice,
and trace the look of determination in his eye, as his
daughter gave the account of bitter tears being shed
by her, because of her wish and his refusal to allow
her, at the age of fifteen, to enter the Ardencaple
household as nursery maid to the wee Maister George.
' Na, Na, Lizzie, it is a hoosefu' of strange servants,
ye maun wait till ye are older/
"And so it came to pass, Lizzie's service began a
very few years after this in the old house, under the
eye of that father who daily inspected every beam,
door, and chimney, and taught his daughter the
meaning of faithful service.