Both brother and sister retained the deepest and most grateful
sense of her kindness.
Having thus touched upon the leading principle of Flora's character, I
may dismiss the rest more slightly. She was highly accomplished, and
had acquired those elegant manners to be expected from one who, in early
youth, had been the companion of a princess; yet she had not learned
to substitute the gloss of politeness for the reality of feeling.
When settled in the lonely regions of Glennaquoich, she found that her
resources in French, English, and Italian literature, were likely to
be few and interrupted; and, in order to fill up the vacant time, she
bestowed a part of it upon the music and poetical traditions of the
Highlanders, and began really to feel the pleasure in the pursuit, which
her brother, whose perceptions of literary merit were more blunt, rather
affected for the sake of popularity than actually experienced. Her
resolution was strengthened in these researches by the extreme delight
which her inquiries seemed to afford those to whom she resorted for
information.
Her love of her clan, an attachment which was almost hereditary in
her bosom, was, like her loyalty, a more pure passion than that of
her brother.
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