At the Eleventh Hour Author:Helen Mathers Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III Myra Farquhar was governess to the three young children of a rich Glasgow merchant, who inhabited a princely mansion he had built for himself with... more »in a few miles of the city. She was very happy there, being treated with the utmost consideration and respect. Mrs. Maitland considered herself fortunate in having secured a lady by birth and education to undertake the care of her children, and did her utmost to make the girl feel at home. Myra Farquhar had inherited much of her mother's strength of character, and was not unfitted by nature to do battle with the world, but though she was as happy as it was possible for her to be as a dependant in the house .of a stranger, her heart turned perpetually towards the lonely house on the shores of Loch Winans. Those who have had a happy childhood, surrounded by love and care, are never estranged from it, but cherish its memories and sweet associations through all the storm and stress of life to the very end. It is the most priceless heritage we can give to our children, a gift which money cannot buy. It had been the aim of Isabel Farquhar's life to hide from her children the weaker and baser side of their father's character long after her own love, if indeed it could ever have been dignified by that name, had died. She strove to foster the filial feeling in their hearts. In their earlier years this had not been difficult, because, although selfish and weak, and lacking in most of the qualities that make for manliness and righteousness, Hugh Farquhar could not be actively unkind to any living thing, least of all to his little children whom he loved. But as they grew older, and a clearer and wider vision came to them, it became less easy to gloss over the discrepancies in his character. They knew that, though means were so l...« less