’At that rate,’ said Herries, laughing, ’you must work down the animal, I suppose, and have the tail on Saturdays?’ But Alison shook her head, smiling and dimpling. No; it appeared the tail came up on Thursdays ’roasted with the gigot,’ and was usually the portion of ’Ferran,’ the collie dog. And so they had a good deal of conversation over that little meal, and were very friendly, and even merry. Those who knew Herries only under the frigid reserve and severe pre-occupation of his usual manner, would have been astonished to see how he unbent, how simple were the jokes he cracked with Lucky, how kind and gentle his converse with his timid guest. Lucky brought in a steaming toddy, and Herries would have it that Alison must ’taste.’ Out of his own glass—before he touched it himself—he must ladle a drop into hers, with Lucky’s funny old toddy-ladle, with the worn and dented silver bowl, and spindly, long black handle. Yes, that was a pleasant hour, but, like all such, over too soon. They must go. Alison, from an inner pocket, had produced a remarkably attenuated little purse. ’I suppose, sir,’ she said, ’it is now time that we should pay for our dinner?’ Herries leaned his elbows on the table, and, smiling, looked long and deep into her eyes. Well, he had looked into a woman’s eyes like that before—perhaps too often. But never before had the depths of Alison’s innocent being been plumbed by such a gaze. It troubled her—but with how sweet, how perilously sweet a trouble! Her eyes fell, and the colour crept to her cheeks. Herries looked away, but his voice was kind when it spoke. ’When a lady does a man the honour to dine with him,’ he said, smiling, ’she is not generally asked to pay the reckoning.’ Alison blushed scarlet, as one detected in some awful solecism, and huddled the little purse out of sight. ’I—I didn’t know,’ she stammered. ’You must excuse me, sir. I never dined out with—with a gentleman before.’ ’I’ll be sworn you never did!’ Herries said to himself, in great amusement. After that they rose and went out into the streets again, where the short, gloomy winter afternoon was already darkening into evening. Herries naturally escorted his charge up the town towards the Potterrow. They mounted the worn flights of steps, the steep closes and murky wynds, with the brisk step of youth refreshed—Alison the first and least fatigued. Herries felt himself admiring her for the first time. ’Now, that’s a handsome jacket,’ said the innocent man to himself, eyeing the red pelisse, ’and I protest, it sets a handsome figure! A fine free step the girl has, too—country-bred.’ Altogether, he was very well pleased with his companion that night. When they reached the Potterrow it was nearly dark, and the ill-trimmed flaring lantern that hung in the General’s Entry was already lit. ’Will you not come up to your cousin’s tea-table, sir?’ asked Alison, shyly.