The work of the Repository had engrossed much of her time, but in the summer she accompanied her parents and other members of the family on a tour in Scotland. She was in very good health, and walked with a brother and sister from Stirling to Bannockburn and back. Her love of early Scottish history gave her a special interest in the places visited. As they drove through Glencoe it was carefully described to her. Inverness, as being near Culloden, was specially attractive. At Oban she heard of the taking of Sebastopol, and this recalled her to the interests and anxieties of that time. She enjoyed staying at Scotch hotels; but on the whole she had derived less pleasure from the Scotch than from the Irish tour. She found nothing so beautiful as the Killarney echoes, and missed the warm-hearted sympathy and genuine interest of the Irish peasantry and guides.
The one point that stood out pre-eminent as the outcome of her visit to Scotland was her inspection of the School for the Blind in Edinburgh. The work done there gave her many ideas, inspired many hopes and plans. But she saw more clearly than ever that her scheme was a new departure, and returned with confidence in her own power, and that of her blind workmen, to carry it forward.
CHAPTER VIII
ROYAL BOUNTY
... "From the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank
Of nature's works."...—Milton.