l.

Miss McDonald had a pretty comprehensive knowledge of English literature
and history, and, better perhaps than mere knowledge, a discriminating
and cultivated taste. If her religious education had twisted her view
of the fine arts, she had nevertheless a natural sympathy for the
beautiful, and she would not have been a Scotchwoman if she had not had
a love for the romances of her native land and at heart a "ballad"
sentiment for the cavaliers. If Evelyn had been educated by her
in Edinburgh, she might have been in sentiment a young Jacobite. She had
through translations a sufficient knowledge of the classics to give her
the necessary literary background, and her study of Latin had led her
into the more useful acquisition of French.

If she had been free to indulge her own taste, she would have gone far in
natural history, as was evident from her mastery of botany and her
interest in birds.

She inspired so much confidence by her good sense, clear-headedness, and
discretion, that almost from the first Evelyn was confided to her sole
care, with only the direction that the baby was never for an instant,
night or day, to be left out of the sight of a trusty attendant. The
nurse was absolutely under her orders, she selected the two maids, and no
person except the parents and the governess could admit visitors to the
nursery. This perfect organization was maintained for many years, and
though it came to be relaxed in details, it was literally true that the
heiress was never alone, and never out of the sight of some trusted
person responsible for her safety. But whatever the changes or
relaxation, in holidays, amusements, travel, or education, the person who
formed her mind was the one who had taught her to obey, to put words
together into language, and to speak the truth, from infancy.

It is not necessary to consider Ann McDonald as a paragon. She was
simply an intelligent, disciplined woman, with a strong sense of duty.
If she had married and gone about the ordinary duties of life at the age
of twenty-four, she would probably have been in no marked way
distinguished among women. Her own development was largely due to the
responsibility that was put upon her in the training of another person.
In this sense it was true that she had learned as much as she had
imparted. And in nothing was this more evident than in the range of her
literary taste and judgment. Whatever risks, whatever latitude she might
have been dispose