local doctor, and while she had a comfortable home, and doubtless
a chaise at her disposal, she was very far from the "opulence"
which Carlyle, looking up at her from his lowlier surroundings,
was accustomed to ascribe to her. She was, no doubt, a very clever
girl; and, judging from the portraits taken of her at about this
time, she was an exceedingly pretty one, with beautiful eyes and
an abundance of dark glossy hair.

Even then, however, Miss Welsh had traits which might have made it
certain that she would be much more agreeable as a friend than as
a wife. She had become an intellectuelle quite prematurely--at an
age, in fact, when she might better have been thinking of other
things than the inwardness of her soul, or the folly of religious
belief.

Even as a young girl, she was beset by a desire to criticize and
to ridicule almost everything and every one that she encountered.
It was only when she met with something that she could not
understand, or some one who could do what she could not, that she
became comparatively humble. Unconsciously, her chief ambition was
to be herself distinguished, and to marry some one who could be
more distinguished still.

When she first met Edward Irving, she looked up to him as her
superior in many ways. He was a striking figure in her small
world. He was known in Edinburgh as likely to be a man of mark;
and, of course, he had had a careful training in many subjects of
which she, as yet, knew very little. Therefore, insensibly, she
fell into a sort of admiration for Irving--an admiration which
might have been transmuted into love. Irving, on his side, was