Scotch Marriages, Volume 1 by Sarah Tytler

Primrose Ramsay bore a Christian name which was not altogether uncommon / among the Scotch-women of her era. It was also the surname of the / excellent vicar of Wakefield and of a noble Scotch family, and the / ordinary title of the sweetest and most welcome of spring flowers. She / was, as Jenny Hedderwick had reported, on a friendly visit to young / Mrs. Forsyth, the doctor's wife in Craigie. Primrose was not like her / namesake and emblem, strictly fair to see, but she was cheery as ever / was pinched daisy in February, promising to close the gloomy winter and / herald the glad summer. She was a little, pale, somewhat meagre girl, / whom a passer-by might have stigmatised as insignificant-looking. Her / spirit, sense, and kindness, and not her face, constituted her fortune, / and it was only when mind and heart took possession of her slight, / though wiry, frame, coloured her ordinarily colourless cheeks, and / kindled up her grey eyes that they looked handsome. Primrose Ramsay was / valued even in the matter of personal appearance exactly in proportion / as she was known. Slight acquaintances thought little of her, intimate / friends agreed to admire her very defects, and the old relation who had / brought up the orphan girl, and with whom she usually resided, set such / store upon her that Mrs. Purvis grudged Primrose out of her sight, and / confidently believed her the attraction of all eyes and hearts, the / greatest beauty, and the most virtuous, charming young woman in the / world.

Withal, there was something about Primrose Ramsay -- unprotected, poor, / unassuming, and kindly as she was -- which prevented anyone from taking / liberties with her; something which daunted the coarse and shallow, and / rendered her, on occasions, as formidable as her aunt, the old Lady / of Drumsheugh, could prove. Primrose won respect in her youth, and / exercised influence wherever she went.

Primrose heard from Mrs. Forsyth, with a mixture of interest, / amusement, and pain, all the nonsensical stories, loud ridicule, and / blame, and increasingly rampant scandal afloat with regard to young / Mrs. Ramsay. Primrose could not help feeling diverted, in spite of her / goodness; for she was a girl in whom the sense of humour abounded in / exceptional strength, keeping pace with that ‘weeping-blood in woman's / breast,' which made her sorry too; because it went to her heart not / to be able to go over to Drumsheugh where she had spent some of her / happiest youthful holidays, or to hold out her hand to Jamie Ramsay's / wife, when Jamie was Primrose's nearest male relative, and he and she / had been fast boy and girl friends. And she was sure Jamie was not half / a bad fellow, though he had made a low marriage.

Primrose entertained a shrewd suspicion that the day had been when her / aunt, Mrs. Ramsay, had experienced a dread lest Jamie should throw his / handkerchief at her (Primrose); and so, just when the girl was growing / up, had managed to put a stop to her annual visits to Drumsheugh. But / in place of bearing malice or enjoying her revenge, Primrose proved, / among other things, how perfectly disengaged her own juvenile feelings / had been, by only laughing and shaking her head, ever so little, over / the _mal à propos_ recollection, and perhaps cherishing a livelier / grain of curiosity respecting that bonnie Peggy who had figured as / Primrose's unconscious rival.

Primrose's sole chance of catching a glimpse of her cousin's wife, / whom she did not remember having seen as the cotter lass, Peggy / Hedderwick, was at Craigture Kirk, to which the Forsyths went / one afternoon on purpose to furnish their guest with the desired / opportunity. Primrose felt puzzled and disappointed by the glimpse / she got. Yes, young Mrs. Ramsay was very bonnie so far as features, / skin, and what colour remained to her, went. But could this shabby, / dowdy, almost slatternly ‘disjasket' (out of joint from some depressing / cause) -- young woman be the lass who had caught bauld Jamie Ramsay's / fancy? Primrose, notwithstanding her fine eye for beauty, had some / difficulty in believing it. Poor, low-born lass! bonnie Peggy's / exaltation seemed likely to end in her destruction. Poor Jamie! whose / single-heartedness and recklessness had brought Drumsheugh to such / a pass. But there was nothing to be done: Peggy Ramsay, according / to all accounts, was developing into a woman with whom no lady, no / respectable person, would care to hold intercourse.

Primrose Ramsay improved her visit in other ways. She and Mrs. Forsyth / occupied and amused themselves after the most approved standards of / their class and generation. Mrs. Forsyth had put herself slightly out / of the upper circles by marrying a country-town doctor. Still the / simple, stay-at-home gentry were not over-particular, else they must / have narrowed their set to a nearly stifling extent; and there was a / nice enough lower stratum of professional men, bankers, clergy and / half-pay officers with their families in Craigie, to which the Forsyths / could justly consider themselves as belonging, that at many points / touched upon and merged into the lairds and their ladies' sphere. / Young Mrs. Forsyth had committed no heinous solecism in marrying her / doctor, and she was not punished for the small offence. She did not / feel ashamed to invite Primrose Ramsay to become the Forsyths' first / guest in fulfilment of an old school-girl promise. Primrose could / accept the invitation and be happy in the visit, without any further / _arrière-pensée_ than belonged to her stifled regret that she was / thenceforth banished from Drumsheugh, which had become a prohibited / place to her.