’She seemed a pleasing and unassuming young woman,’ said the elder man, mildly. ’She inadvertently paid me a visit in my office some time since. I have been looking up the old books, and find that the young lady’s grandfather was a client of the old house, when the century was in its teens. It would be a genteel recognition of the old connection to show her some little civility on this her first visit to the capital.’ ’What could you do for a girl like that?’ inquired Herries, carelessly. ’Well,’ said Creighton, with a nervous air, ’I did think—I was thinking that a tea-drinking—’ ’A _what_?’ said Herries, looking at his partner as if he thought him gone mad. ’Well, an asking of the ladies to tea one day,’ said Creighton, with a look of guilt. ’But I daresay ’tis impossible—impossible,’ he went on, as the look of incredulity refused to fade upon the younger man’s face. ’Something else might be thought of—showing the town to the young lady, there’s much in this old city instructive to a young mind. And ’tis a pity the poor thing should go back, to be buried in the country, without seeing all she can; but I’m helpless there; these streets kill me just now.’ But Herries seemed to smile upon this latter suggestion as a suitable one. ’Show the lions of the city to Miss Graham?’ he said. ’Well, we might see about that. ’Twould be an act of good-nature to the country-mouse. I’ll oblige you if I can find the time.’ One of the genuinely kind impulses to which Herries, in spite of his apparent coldness, was often subject, whimsically seized him on this matter. He had now seen Miss Graham several times. She was his cousin’s guest; after all, perhaps he owed her a civility. So, one morning, when no business of importance was demanding personal attention, he set off for the Potterrow, with a view to suggesting a day of sight-seeing to his cousin and her friend. Both ladies were fortunately at home, and professed themselves delighted with the idea. ’The driest thing imaginable, love, and just like him to propose it,’ said Nancy, in a vivacious whisper, as the two went off to prepare themselves for a walk. ’But ’tis proper you should see all the tiresome things, and, of course, I must come as duenna, though, Lord knows, you’d be as safe with Archie in a desert as with your grannie. Not but what it is kind of him to propose this,’ added the little woman, with compunction,—’kind in substantiate, but no romance: that’s his character.’ Alison was taking her new pelisse out of its cherished folds, and brushing her curls into extra good order. Nancy playfully pushed her away from the one mirror of the establishment. ’No good to dress yourself up for Archie, dear,’ she said, laughingly. ’Were you dressed in parchment and tied up with tape ’twould be all one to him. ’Deed, in that case, you might take his fancy, for you’d then resemble his dearly beloved law-papers that he lives by. But come now, for my gentleman hates being kept waiting.’