fluenced our selection of that residence where we spent
several summers.

On March 30, 1897, there came to us our daughter. As I first gazed
upon her Mrs. Carnegie said,

"Her name is Margaret after your mother. Now one request I have to
make."

"What is it, Lou?"

"We must get a summer home since this little one has been given us. We
cannot rent one and be obliged to go in and go out at a certain date.
It should be our home."

"Yes," I agreed.

"I make only one condition."

"What is that?" I asked.

"It must be in the Highlands of Scotland."

"Bless you," was my reply. "That suits me. You know I have to keep out
of the sun's rays, and where can we do that so surely as among the
heather? I'll be a committee of one to inquire and report."

Skibo Castle was the result.

It is now twenty years since Mrs. Carnegie entered and changed my
life, a few months after the passing of my mother and only brother
left me alone in the world. My life has been made so happy by her that
I cannot imagine myself living without her guardianship. I thought I
knew her when she stood Ferdinand's test,[41] but it was only the
surface of her qualities I had seen and felt. Of their purity,
holiness, wisdom, I had not sounded the depth. In every emergency of
our active, changing, and in later years somewhat public life, in all
her relations with others, including my family and her own, she has
proved the diplomat and peace-maker. Peace and good-will attend her
footsteps wherever her blessed influence extends. In the rare
instances demanding heroic action it is she who first realizes this
and plays the part.

[Footnote 41: The reference is to the quotation from _The Tempest_ on
page 214.]

The Peace-Maker has never had a quarrel in all her life, not even with
a schoolmate, and there does not live a soul upon the earth who has
met her who has the slightest cause to complain of neglect. Not that
she does not welcome the best and gently avoid the undesirable--none
is more fastidious than she--but neither rank, wealth, nor social
position affects her one iota. She is incapable of acting or speaking
rudely; all is in perfect good taste. Still, she never lowers the
standard. Her intimates are only of the best. She is always thinking
how she can do good to those around her--planning for this one and
that in case of need and making such judicious arrangements or
presents as surprise those cooeperating with her.

I cannot imagine myself