Her affectionate uncle became alarmed at this rapid and melancholy change. So far as gold could purchase the aid of the best medical skill he commanded its attendance. But even the most learned of the London physicians could discover no medicine to remove her malady. In their own minds they despaired of her, but as usually happens in such cases, to cover the deficiency of their art, they recommended her native air as the dernier ressort. Chirsty eagerly caught at this last remaining hope, so congenial to the current of her feelings at the time, and her uncle was thus obliged to yield to necessity; and as certain matters in which he had engaged rendered it quite impossible for him to take charge of her himself, he was obliged to resign her to the care of her maid.
The doctors were right for once. Every breeze that blew on her from her native land as she proceeded on her journey seemed to be fraught with health; her spirits rose, and long before she reached the place of her birth, she was so far recovered as to remove all fears of any serious termination of her complaint. How did her mind go on as she travelled, sketching to itself ideal pictures of the charms of home! But alas! how changed did every person and everything seem to her when she at last reached it. How pitiful did the provincial town appear to her London eyes! The streets seemed to have shrunk in, and the very houses and gardens to have dwindled; and when she reached her paternal mansion, she blushed to think how very grievously the fondness of her ancient recollections had deceived her.
The full tide of unrestrained affection which burst forth the moment she was within its walls was so gratifying to her heart, that for some time every other feeling or thought was absorbed by it; but many weeks did not pass over her head until the conversation and manners of her parents and family, which had startled her even at the first interview, began to obtrude themselves on her notice in spite of all she could do to shut her eyes against them, until they finally became intolerably disagreeable to her. She soon discovered,—and a certain degree of sorrow and self-reproach accompanied the discovery,—that the refined education which she had received had rendered it quite impossible that she could long endure the mortifications to which she was daily and hourly exposed by her vulgar though affectionate and well-meaning relatives. Painful as the thought was for many reasons, she became convinced of the necessity of an early separation; and, accordingly, she made her uncle’s wish for her speedy return to him an apology for fixing an early day for her departure. Yet do not suppose from this that the ties of affection were not strong within her. The parting scene was not gone through without many tears and lingering embraces, that sufficiently proved the triumph of nature in her mind over the arbitrary dictates of fashion. And after she was gone, the large richly bound folio bible, out of which her father ever afterwards read on Sundays,—the gold-mounted spectacles which enabled him so well to decipher its characters, and of which he was at all times so justly vain,—the cashmere shawl that kept her good mother so warm, and the caps, the bonnets, the gowns, the globes, and the books of prints, with which her grown-up sisters and brothers were so much delighted, and the dolls and humming-tops of which the junior members of the family, down to the very youngest, were so proud as having been the gifts of “the grand leddy from Lunnon,” for sister they dared hardly to call her, were not the only marks of her affection that she left behind her. Besides these keepsakes there were other presents of a more solid nature bestowed in secret, which, whilst they contributed to enable her father to hold his head higher as he walked up the causeway of the main street of Tain, compelled Chirsty herself to exercise a very strict economy in providing for those wants which her own style of life rendered essential to her, large as was the sum which she had received from the bounty of her uncle.
Passing through Edinburgh on her way to London, she was visited and kindly invited by a lady of fashion who had known her in the metropolis, and she soon found herself deeply engaged in gaiety. Perhaps she did not enter into it the less readily that she had so recently returned from what might have been well enough called her life of mortification at Tain. Having once got into the vortex, she found it difficult to extricate herself from it, and this difficulty was not lessened by the admiration which her beauty and accomplishments so universally excited both in public and in private. She became the chief object of interest, and she was so caressed and courted by every one, that it was not very surprising if the adoration that was paid to her did in some degree affect so young a head. However this might be, three things were very certain,—in the first place, that she had been extremely regular in writing to her uncle during her stay at Tain; secondly, that before leaving that place she had heard from her uncle, who had warmly expressed his anxiety for her return to him; and thirdly, that whereas she had intended to stay in Edinburgh for two or three days only, she was led on from day to day by this ball and the other party to remain, till nearly a whole winter had melted away like its own snows, during all which time she had likewise procrastinated, and, consequently, had entirely omitted the duty of writing to her uncle.
The day of thought and of self-disapproval came at length, and bitter were her reflections. She resolved at least to do all in her power to repair her fault. She sat down immediately and wrote a long letter to her uncle, in which she scrupled not to blame herself to the fullest extent for her want of thought and apparent negligence towards so kind a friend and benefactor, and she declared her repentance and her intention of returning to him immediately.
Having accordingly reached London very soon after her letter, she was driven to her uncle’s well-known door. Her impatience to behold him was such, that she could hardly rest in the chaise till the postilion dismounted to knock for her admittance. How intense were her emotions during that brief space! How eagerly did her eyes run over every window in the ample front of the house! How rapidly did the images of her uncle, and of Alexander Tod, his old and faithful servant, dance through her imagination whilst she gazed intently on the yet unopened door, prepared to catch the first smile of surprise and of welcome which she knew would illuminate the honest countenance of that tried domestic, the moment he should discover who it was that summoned him. As she looked she was surprised to perceive that the door itself had strangely changed the modest and unpretending hue which it had worn when she last saw it for a queer uncouth flaring colour, somewhat between a pink and an orange. Before she had time to wonder at this metamorphosis the door did open, and if its opening did produce any surprise it was her own; for, instead of discovering the plain but respectable figure of Alexander Tod, whom she had been long taught to consider more as an old friend than as a menial, she beheld a saucy fopling, bepowdered, underbred footman, in a gaudy vulgar looking livery. The man stared when she asked for her uncle, and seemed but half inclined to consent to the hall being encumbered with her baggage, and, after having shown her with unconcealed petulance into a little back parlour, she had the mortification, through the door which he had carelessly left ajar behind him, to hear herself thus announced,—
“A young person in the back parlour who wishes to speak to you, sar.”
And, chagrined as she was by this provoking delay, she could not help laughing, as she threw herself into a sofa to wait for her uncle’s appearance. He came at last, and his joy at again beholding her was great and unfeigned.
“Welcome again to my house, my dear Chirsty,” said he, with tears of joy, after his first warm and silent embraces were over; “Oh! why did you cease to write to me? But I need say no more, for what is done cannot be undone; yet, if you had but written to me, things might have been otherwise.”
“I ought indeed to have written to you, my dear uncle,” replied Chirsty; “but much as I have deserved your anger, things cannot be but well with me, whilst I am thus affectionately and kindly received by you.”