274 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



stepped in to have a look at a school recently opened on 

 'the brae-head' of Cromarty, when a man entered, 

 looking like a working man in his Sunday dress, who, 

 as a whisper from her mother informed her, was Hugh 

 Miller. She was struck by the deep thoughtfulness of 

 his face and by the colour of his eyes, ' a deep blue 

 tinged with sapphire/ The first occasion on which, for 

 his part, he heard her name, and cast an attentive glance 

 upon her features, was that which is described in the 

 Schools and Schoolmasters. He was talking with two ladies 

 beside a sun-dial which he had set up in his uncle's 

 garden, when she ' came hurriedly tripping down the 

 garden-walk ' and joined the group. ' She was,' he 

 adds, ' very pretty ; and though in her nineteenth year 

 at the time, her light and somewhat petite figure, and 

 the waxen clearness of her complexion, which resembled 

 rather that of a fair child than of a grown woman, made 

 her look from three to four years younger.' Evidently, 

 though he saw her but for a few minutes, and did not 

 exchange a word with her, she made an unusual impres- 

 sion upon him. 



The probability in fact was that this young lady 

 would form an important addition to the circle of his 

 acquaintance, and to that of the intellectual ' upper ten ' 

 in Cromarty. Both beauty and talent had been among 

 the attributes of the stock from which she sprung. The 

 ' lovely Barbara Hossack ' and several other women 

 noted in the Highlands for their personal attractions 

 had been of her ancestry on the female side ; Provost 

 Hossack of Inverness, trusted friend of President Forbes 

 and honoured intercessor with the Duke of Cumberland 

 for the vanquished of Culloden ; Mr Lachlan Mackenzie, 

 famed Highland preacher, of whom tradition in the 

 northern Scotch counties has much to report ; and the 



