'Your cousin will be expecting me, sir,' she demurred, as in duty bound.
'Oh, Nancy dines at mid-day with the boys, I know,' said Herries, 'and that's two hours and more a-gone. 'Tis not a fashionable hour to ask a lady to take dinner. But we've deserved it—so let us dine.'
He considered a moment. He could not take his present companion to dine alone with him at any of the frequented taverns of the city. But he suddenly recalled a little place where they could go with safety and decorum. It was a resort called 'Lucky Simpson's Howff'—a couple of clean rooms kept by an old wife, and much frequented by simple folk landed from the country, in the neighbouring Grassmarket, who feared the prices and temptations of more fashionable establishments.
'Come,' said Herries, encouragingly. 'It is not more than fine minutes' walk, and Lucky has always the pot upon the fire.' And Alison seemed to have no choice but to follow.
Presently, at the corner of a close, they came upon the oddest little house in the world, whose tiny granite gable, with its crows'-steps, stood sideways to the street. They entered by means of a little outside stairway, and were soon seated in the low-ceilinged, heavily-raftered room, where Lucky Simpson dispensed her simple hospitality. The woman—a stirring old body, in striped cotton gown and snowy 'mutch'—waited upon her guests herself, and seeing that on this occasion she had 'the quality' to deal with, she spread a coarse homespun cloth upon the table, and furnished it with two-pronged forks. Lucky's accustomed guests dined off the bare boards, and 'supped their meat' with horn spoons, as a rule. She now lamented that the day's dinner was nothing more genteel than 'sheep's head, done wi' the collops and the braincakes.' But to Herries and his hungry companion this sounded appetising enough.
They were seated one on each side of the homely little table. Alison had loosened the strings of her hood—it fell back a little from her freshened face, and the little clustering curls about her temples. She was looking about her, all unconscious of possible scrutiny, the pleasure of the situation bright upon her face. Herries looked at her—perhaps for the very first time—with real attention, and a something of her personality, its simplicity and trustfulness, its gentle candour, was borne in upon his mind.
'My God!' he said to himself—and a kind of pang assailed him—'how innocent she looks! It is a woman's body, but sure, only a child looks out of those eyes.' And he felt a sudden warm impulse of kindness and goodwill go out of him towards this grave, shy, country girl.
But the arrival of the sheep's head, steaming in a savoury manner, put an end to reflection.
'Now this is indeed a most sadly ungenteel dish, as Lucky says, to put before a lady,' Herries said. 'Miss Graham has perhaps never tasted anything so common?'
'Who—I, sir?' said Alison, simply. 'Why, don't I get my dinner off it every Monday at The Mains?'