’Nay, now, not that one,’ Herries laughed, forcibly intervening. ’You’d spoil the bonny bunch! She here, a baby one that hides behind your ear—you’d never miss it.’ Alison snipped off the ’baby one,’ tied it up with a thread of silk from Nancy’s basket, and twisted it in a piece of paper, all with her own matter-of-fact and literal air, that made Herries laugh again, and love her more. ’There, sir,’ she said. ’I would ’twere a handsomer gift. You know,’ she added, ’they say ’tis unlucky to give hair—it means "farewell."’ ’Ah, but we’re so prosaic a pair, love,’ said Herries, half-mocking. ’There’s no romantic ill-luck in store for us, be sure. We leave that to the high-flyers.’ Then they went to the window again and bent their heads over the ring. It is hardly fair to spy upon a rising and respectable young lawyer in his softer moments. But if, in the old days at The Mains, Kirsty, the dairy-maid, had had a lover who put an arm around her waist, Alison, as her own good mother might have put it, was ’upsides with her’ now. She and Herries, indeed, were so absorbed in the ring and in each other’s company that they heard no sounds outside the little room. Their backs were towards the door, which had an awkward trick of sometimes swinging open unnoticed, when not securely latched. It had swung open now to some movement of the crazy old tenement, and all unknown to the lovers, a figure stood motionless on the threshold. It was a towering figure, but it had a canny step, to which additional stealthiness had been imparted by the simple expedient of removing the stout shoes from the heavy feet. Too often had Robbie Burns crept to clandestine meetings not to know that ’tis pity on such occasions to disturb the neighbours with unseemly clatter on the stairs. He could see well into the room, for the fire had blazed up brightly, and he perceived perfectly the two figures and their attitude—recognising one. ’Eh, ma lassie,’ he ejaculated to himself, ’kissin’ and kitlin’ like the rest o’ us, for all your prudish airs!’ And he executed, behind the unconscious pair, a short and silent war-dance on his stocking-soles, brandishing his shoes above his head in the mischievous glee of a schoolboy. But he made no sign. Diving behind the door, he deftly reassumed his foot-gear, and then, with a due and decent rattling of the latch, he made known his presence, and entered the little room. Alison turned, with a great and visible start, when she heard and saw him. She felt herself grow pale, for she knew that an awkward, and even terrible, moment had come, and that the meeting, which Nancy had schemed for weeks to avoid, must now, by some unforeseen coincidence, take place. But she took her courage in both her hands, and with it there came to her a certain definite sense of relief. At last, she felt, there would be an end to deception. ’This is Mr. Burns, the poet, sir,’ she said, in her quiet voice, and turned to Herries.