, like her loyalty, a more pure passion than that of her
brother. He was too thorough a politician, regarded his patriarchal
influence too much as the means of accomplishing his own aggrandisement,
that we should term him the model of a Highland Chieftain. Flora felt the
same anxiety for cherishing and extending their patriarchal sway, but it
was with the generous desire of vindicating from poverty, or at least
from want and foreign oppression, those whom her brother was by birth,
according to the notions of the time and country, entitled to govern. The
savings of her income, for she had a small pension from the Princess
Sobieski, were dedicated, not to add to the comforts of the peasantry,
for that was a word which they neither knew nor apparently wished to
know, but to relieve their absolute necessities when in sickness or
extreme old age. At every other period they rather toiled to procure
something which they might share with the Chief, as a proof of their
attachment, than expected other assistance from him save what was
afforded by the rude hospitality of his castle, and the general division
and subdivision of his estate among them. Flora was so much beloved by
them that, when Mac-Murrough composed a song in which he enumerated all
the principal beauties of the district, and intimated her superiority by
concluding, that 'the fairest apple hung on the highest bough,' he
received, in donatives from the individuals of the clan, more seed-barley
than would have sowed his Highland Parnassus, the bard's croft, as it was
called, ten times over.

From situation as well as choice, Miss Mac-Ivor's society was extremely
limited. Her most intimate friend had been Rose Bradwardine, to whom she
was much attached; and when seen together, they would have afforded an
artist two admirable subjects for the gay and the melancholy muse. Indeed
Rose was so tenderly watched by her father, and her circle of wishes was
so limited, that none arose but what he was willing to gratify, and
scarce any which did not come within the compass of his power. With Flora
it was otherwise. While almost a girl she had undergone the most complete
change of scene, from gaiety and splendour to absolute solitude and
comparative poverty; and the ideas and wishes which she chiefly fostered
respected great national events, and changes not to be brought round
without both hazard and bloodshed, and therefore not to be thought of
with levity. Her manner, consequent