Lady Victoria Campbell

HOME FOR GOOD 71
and yet I believe that you will see, when the plan of
your life has been worked out, that the want of that
has been better for you than the possession of it could
have been. I did not know that I had been a help
to you, and what you say about yourself I could not
read with dry eyes, — partly from the pleasure it gave
me to hear you say it,— partly from a sense of my own
unworthiness to have such things said to me, partly
from the feeling, the strong feeling of regard and
sympathy I have for you personally, dear Lady
Victoria. When you speak of your e narrowed life/
you do not know how much those that have watched
even a little of it may have learnt from it, and how it
may have helped them to understand :
" ' 'Tis not the grapes of Canaan that repay,
But the high faith that fails not by the way.'
These lines always echo in my mind with a deep
meaning that I daresay you will not comprehend.
Whether the future is to bring you, or can bring
you, any enlargement of outward activity or not, I
am certain your life will always be in a far higher
sphere, a life full of usefulness and light."
In 1877 Lady Victoria went with Miss Susan
Johnstone to Paris, to take advantage of the delicate
skill in mechanical contrivances, in which the French
were at that time, at any rate, in advance of the
English makers. Her difficulties, and those of the
instrument makers, were not easily overcome, and
she spent a month in Paris before returning to London.
Even then Dr. Roth's unwearying patience and