Her mother died when she was a child, and her father had kept himself
shut up in his study, leaving her chiefly to the care of a Shetland
nurse, who told her Scandinavian stories from morning to night, with
invention ever ready to supply any blank in the tablets of her memory.
Alec thought his mother's opinion the more to be approved, and Kate's
the more to be admired; showing the lack of entireness in his nature,
by thus dissociating the good and the admirable. That which is best
cannot be less admirable than that which is not best.
CHAPTER XLIX.
The next day saw Alec walking by the side of Kate mounted on his pony,
up a steep path to the top of one of the highest hills surrounding the
valley. It was a wild hill, with hardly anything growing on it but
heather, which would make it regal with purple in the autumn: no tree
could stand the blasts that blew over that hill in winter. Having
climbed to the topmost point, they stood and gazed. The country lay
outstretched beneath in the glow of the June day, while around them
flitted the cool airs of heaven. Above them rose the soaring blue of
the June sky, with a white cloud or two floating in it, and a blue peak
or two leaning its colour against it.
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