Presently, having dined, he walked briskly up the town in the gloaming. Lights were beginning to twinkle from the houses in the old town—lights so high up in the gathering haze, that they seemed to strain to the stars. The ill-lighted and malodorous wynds and closes clattered to the deafening din of their granite-given echoes; harsh voices called to each other across the narrow spaces; there floated from the castle height the toll of a bell, giving the hour. Herries picked his way to the Potterrow, and was admitted to his cousin’s house by the discreet Jean. With the privilege of intimacy, he walked unannounced into the little parlour. But for the dancing firelight it was in darkness, the cosy, red curtains drawn, and those within seemed in no hurry for the lights. ’Well, cousin!’ said Herries, carelessly, as he entered. But so very tall a woman’s figure rose from the hearth, where it seemed to have been seated—displacing two little boys as it did so—that Herries realised at once it was not his Cousin Nancy. Jean saved the situation at this critical moment by bringing in a pair of lighted candles. And thus Archibald Herries and Alison Graham saw each other for the first time. Alison shook in her shoes, for she felt that this could be none other than the redoubtable Herries. And Herries, who was in a bad temper, inwardly cursed his luck which had betrayed him into an awkward interview with a country miss. ’Mrs. Maclehose is gone out to a tea-drinking, sir,’ Alison managed to say, standing shyly where she had risen. ’But she should presently come home. It is past the hour when she promised to return.’ ’I apologise for my intrusion,’ said Herries. ’Let me present myself, in Mrs. Maclehose’s absence—her cousin, and your servant, Archibald Herries.’ He bowed, with the accustomed little flourish and affectation of the day, and Alison stole a look at him half frightened and half fascinated. She had never seen so fine a personage as this young man in all her days, with his smartly cut, if sober, coat—his laced frills, the powder in his hair, the ring upon his finger. How fine and delicate and clear-cut were his features, how cold and keen his blue eyes, under those ironically-arched and finely pencilled eyebrows. No wonder, Alison thought, that Nancy was afraid of him. He was terrible: much more so, being so smart and fine, than if he had been a snuffy old gentleman, such as Alison, in her fancy, had painted him. And yet, behold, the moment he sat down, Danny inserted himself between his knees, and Willy lolled against his shoulder, with the clumsy affection of boyhood. The children, evidently, were not afraid of this terrible person. Alison, in an agony of shyness, was wondering if she must introduce herself, when Herries saved her the trouble. ’And so you are come to explore the capital, Miss Graham,’ he said, showing that he knew her name, ’but doubtless you knew it before?’