xvi . BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



and admiration of all with whom she came in contact, and 

 she was always a welcome guest with old and young alike. 



The means at Reydon were narrow, and in those days 

 poverty was regarded almost as a crime, so they lived quietly 

 in the old Hall, sufficient society for each other, and each 

 pursuing the line of study in accordance with the particular 

 bent of her individual genius. 



Susanna had. married in 1831, and come with her husband* 

 to live at Southwold, and it was at their house that Katie 

 met her future husband. Mr. Thomas Traill belonged to one 

 •of the oldest families in Orkney. He was also a friend and 

 brother officer of Mr. Moodie's in the 21st Royal Scotch 

 Fusiliers, "and the two families of Moodie and Traill had 

 been connected by marriage in more than one generation. 

 Educated at Baliol College, Oxford, in the same year with 

 Lockhart, who was an intimate friend, Mr. Traill could 

 number many of the great writers and men of the day among 

 his acquaintances, and knew many anecdotes of Scott, Giffard, 

 Jeffreys and Wilson. He had married first an Orkney lady, 

 and her health requiring a warmer climate, he had lived 

 abroad for several years and enjoyed the opportunity of 

 meeting some of the great men of literature and science at 

 ■the courts of Paris and Berlin. He was an excellent linguist 

 -and a well-read man. 



At the time of his visit to Southwold his wife had been 

 dead some years, his two sons were in Orkney with their 

 mother's relatives, and he, having no settled plan for the 

 future, was ready to take a lively interest in the question of 

 -emigration to Canada, the new country at that time being 

 widely advertised and lectured upon, and in which free grants 

 of land were being offered as an inducement to retired and 

 half-pay officers to try their fortunes in the New World. 



* John W. D. Moodie (youngest son of Moodie of Me'setter, Orkney), 

 late Lieut. 21st Fusiliers, and author of "Ten Years in South Africa," 

 " A Soldier and Settler," etc. 



