Lady Victoria Campbell

NIGHEAN AN DIUC 293
Tiree Mansion is one Barley Corn, and will tell Howe
to make out a lease for your life."
The days were long past, if they had ever existed,
when the Duke thought " I shall not persevere."
Winter in Tiree had become an established order,
and was accepted by all who knew Lady Victoria
as an accomplished fact. She came back with the
spring ; her appearance bearing no marks of devas-
tating storms, and the sough of the winds was too
far away to rouse more than fitfully the fears of her
friends.
The Lodge, originally built for a school, had then
become the gamekeeper's house, was now added to
and enlarged, and became a mansion, or a villa,
or a palace, according to the ideas of those who
watched its walls breaking the outlines of the Bay
of Gott.
It was to become a City of Refuge, and " the House
Beautiful," to many who sought its hospitable doors.
It suited Lady Victoria ; in it she could " settle
down," and it was a home in which she could have
her first, and always greatest happiness, the company
of Lord Archibald and of his daughter Elspeth.
Her brother was as well known in the island as herself,
and Lady Victoria found in his knowledge of the
people, and his love of the " wild island," a perfect
community of interest. Into the Lodge for the winter
work came her fellow-helpers. The girls who taught
her many classes, and helped her in a hundred ways.
" Their name is legion." Many of them met their
future destiny while with Lady Victoria. She loved