When he thought, however, of thus meeting the minister in private session, Frank’s orderly and steady heart beat a little higher. Before all questions of Uncle Anderson’s debtors, there was one of much more importance--and that was the question of Elsie, which meant far more to Frank than money, or even the whole of the Scotch property--at least he thought so for the moment: but things were by no means so far advanced as to justify him in asking an interview with Mr. Buchanan on that subject. Alas! no, Elsie was never in the same mind (he thought) for any two meetings. Sometimes she was delightful to him, accepting his attentions; which, however, were no more than were paid to her by several other admirers as if she liked them, and giving him dances, almost as many as he asked, and allowing him to walk by her side in the weekly promenade on the Links, and talking to him sweetly, whatever his company might be: but next time they met, Elsie would be engaged for every dance, she would be flanked by other competitors on each side, and if she gave Frank a bow and a smile in passing, that would be all he obtained from her--so that if he were sometimes high in hope, he was at others almost in despair. Should he ever be allowed to see Mr. Buchanan on the subject, to ask his daughter from him? Ah, that depended! not upon Frank, but upon Elsie, who was no longer a little girl, but at the height of her simple sway, one of the prettiest girls in St. Rule’s, and enjoying the position, and with no intention of cutting it short. Frank breathed a sigh, that almost blew out the lamps in the High Street, lamps already lighted, and shining in the lingering daylight, like strange little jewelled points, half green, half yellow. The electric light shines white in that street now, and makes the whole world look dead, and all the moving people like ghosts. But the lamps then were like jewels, with movement and consciousness in them, trembling in the colourless radiance of the long evening: for it was now summer weather, and already the days were long. When the assembly outside the club dispersed, it happened to be Frank’s luck to walk up the town with Rodie Buchanan, whose way was the same as his own. They went round by the West Port, though it was out of their way, to convoy Johnny Wemyss to his lodgings. Johnnie did not make matches for next day, except at rare intervals, for he was busy, either “coaching” his pupils (but that word had not then been invented), or working (as he called it) on the sands with his net and his “wee spy-glass,” playing himself, the natives called it: or else he was reading theology for the next examination; but he allowed himself to walk down to the club in the evening, where all the young men met.