Lady Victoria Campbell

NIGHEAN AN DIUC 277
No one loved more deeply both land and sea,
and the blue heavens above her. The sunrises
over Jura, which were her winter's joy ; the long,
curved sweep of the white sands of Gott ; the circle
of the islands, glowing in sunset radiance. From
Iona she looked across the Sound to the " jasper
walls " of the Eoss, or from Ethica saw the soft
cloud-caps gather round the dark hills of Mull.
She needed all the strength her lifted eyes could
gather from them. It was not the sadness of Nature
which oppressed her, as the grey mists swept eerily
across the sunless seas. She knew they were often
but the symbols of the unspoken burden of sorrow
and want ; but the remembrance of days " when
there follows a mist and a weeping rain, and life is
never the same again." It was the knowledge of the
storms breaking over many a lonely cottage, and the
aching hearts within, which made her intent on cross-
ing the threshold of these homes, bringing the cheer
of her voice, and the tender, eager sympathy which,
like a ray of sunlight, came with her going out and
coming in.
The sorrows of the year had fallen heavily on the
inner sanctuary of her affections. Her heart ever
" turned again home," for in the background of all
her thoughts and actions there always stood the
presence of her father, and the family were but the
links which bound her to him. Stronger than death
was the love she had borne him from her earliest years.
She once said to one of her sisters, that she could
never remember the time, after she returned home for