It was when I was ten years old that Wee Elspeth ceased coming to me, and though I missed her at first, it was not with a sense of grief or final loss.

She had only gone somewhere.
It was then that Angus Macayre began to be my tutor.

He had been a profound student and had lived among books all his life.

He had helped Jean in her training of me, and I had learned more than is usually taught to children in their early years.

When a grand governess was sent to Muircarrie by my guardian, she was amazed at the things I was familiar with, but she abhorred the dark, frowning castle and the loneliness of the place and would not stay.