Alison Hepburn's Exploit

by John Davidson


On a night in February, 1880, a tall, unwomanly figure, thickly 
veiled, and dressed in ill-fitting black, sped from the 
booking-office to the bookstall, bought a cheap edition of Byron, 
plunged through a struggling crowd of passengers and porters, and 
sprang into a third-class carriage, just as the guard blew his 
whistle. 

By the time the 10 p.m. train had puffed out of the Waverley Station, 
Edinburgh, the late passenger had recovered her breath and lifted her 
veil. The face was that of a young woman of not more than nineteen, 
and was remarkable for its dark eyes, widely and deeply set in a 
broad low brow. The mouth, nose, and chin had a crude uncarved 
appearance, which the yellow light of the carriage lamp did nothing 
to dispel. A small black hat sat among a loosely coiled mass of black 
hair. The black silk gloves had been darned, and the black dress and 
jacket were much worn as well as badly made. 

The girl glanced carelessly at the other passengers, of whom there 
were three, and then began to dip into Byron. She turned over the 
pages, reading a line here and there; but shortly she laid the book 
aside, and gave herself up to a furtive study of her companions. 
Opposite her were two women, with a large hamper on the seat between 
them. The faces of these women had the raw, florid hue of the 
porter-drinker; their eyes bulged and their mouths were loose. 
Wrapped in cloaks and shawls, their feet tucked up on the seat and 
pressing either side of the hamper, they had settled themselves in 
the corners -- for the night, apparently. They stared at the girl out 
of their lustreless, bulging eyes, blinked at the lamp, dozed and 
stared, and blinked again. On the same side of the compartment as the 
girl sat the fourth passenger, a sailor, with a big brown beard on a 
young face. He kept clearing his throat and wetting his lips, as if 
about to speak; but whenever his eye caught that of one of the 
others, he became suddenly interested in the knotting of a 
handkerchief which covered a cage he had beside him on the seat. 

In the sailor the girl took little interest; but the women attracted 
and repelled her. They were clearly professional people of some kind. 
The girl's interest was expressed very frankly in a rapid succession 
of glances. At last, one of the women, more amused than annoyed, 
smiled impudently at her. A deep blush dyed the young woman's face 
immediately; she picked up her book and pressed back into her corner. 

The volume opened at 'The Waltz,' and she read the first lines : 

'Muse of the many-twinkling feet! whose charms 
Are now extended up from legs to arms; 
Terpsichore! too long misdeem'd a maid -- 
Reproachful term -- bestow'd but to upbraid --  
Henceforth in all the bronze of brightness shine, 
The least a vestal of the virgin Nine. 
Far be from thee and thine the name of prude; 
Mock'd, yet triumphant; sneer'd at, unsubdued; 
Thy legs must move to conquer as they fly, 
If but thy coats are reasonably high; 
Thy breast, if bare enough, requires no shield; 
Dance forth -- _sans armour_ thou shall take the field, 
And own -- impregnable to most assaults,
Thy not too lawfully-begotten waltz.' 

A smile of scorn curled her lip as she read. She was thinking how 
strong it was, and how very superior to Tennyson. Byron is still the 
poet of the 'teens,' and this young woman was a determined partisan. 
Although she had read hardly any of Tennyson, she had set up a 
Poet-Laureate of straw against which she was constantly tilting. She 
knew Tennyson had been dubbed 'Miss Alfred,' and she relished calling 
him so with sarcastic emphasis, and a deep satisfaction, as if she 
had invented the phrase. She closed the book over her finger, and lay 
back to enjoy the feeling of power transferred to her senses by the 
lines she had read. To be a rebel, to do and say daring things -- 
that was her ambition. And had she not begun her career in a very 
signal manner? To run away from home at nineteen, with nothing but a 
copy of Byron and some biscuits -- not even a nightgown in a bag -- 
and no umbrella! It was to beat the record, she thought. In some 
future school history of literature, admiring and envious girls 
should read how Alison Hepburn took her life into her own hands in 
her nineteenth year. 

She took from her pocket a dumpy roll of manuscript. Undoing the 
ribbon with which it was tied, she glanced over the pages to see that 
they were all there and in their right order; she also looked 
lovingly at the small clear writing, and the old English letters of 
the title-page -- 'A Godless Universe, and other Poems, by Alison 
Hepburn.' It would make a sensation, she had no doubt of that. There 
_could_ be no difficulty. A publisher would buy the copyright from 
her for a good sum, or she would have to wait for her fortune until 
the book had been brought out. She would be quite satisfied with 
either alternative. Had she not nine pounds in Scotch notes in her 
bosom? She blushed a little at the fancy picture of herself setting 
out to conquer the world, with nothing but biscuits and a copy of 
Byron. She really could make no claim to be considered a wild 
romantic person, possessed as she was of a small capital and a 
valuable manuscript. The blood mounted to her head, and a feeling of 
security, which even she perceived to be extraordinary, overcame her. 
She closed her eyes, and, broad awake, dreamt for an hour of a 
fabulous income from 'A Godless Universe'; of marriages with handsome 
young noblemen; and of unexampled worldwide fame. As her brain 
cooled, she thought: 'At any rate, I won't fare any worse than 
Campbell; he got half a crown a line for 'The Pleasures of Hope.' 
That would make --  I have two thousand five hundred lines. Eight 
half-crowns to a pound; eights in twenty-five -- three. That would 
make over three hundred pounds. That would keep me for three years; 
so it's all right.' 

She picked up Byron again, for her spirits were falling rapidly, and 
selected a passage in 'Cain,' which she read with muttering lips.

'Souls who dare use their immortality --  
Souls who dare look the Omnipotent tyrant in 
His everlasting face, and tell him that 
His evil is not good.' 

The impulse of these verses, if they can be called so, was enough, in 
her overwrought condition, to send up the mercury. She laid aside the 
book, and sat erect, her head poised defiantly. 

'Souls who dare use their immortality.' 

That's what she was doing. Her brief life came before her, and she 
seemed to look down on her past from a high pinnacle. It was all a 
mystery. How had she come to be born the daughter of a small 
stationer in a street off Leith Walk? The force that was she might 
have been Sappho, might have been Mary Queen of Scots. A little dingy 
house with close, low-ceilinged rooms, and a mixed odour of the wood 
of lead pencils and the lamp-black of newspapers; the gray stone hill 
of houses between Leith and Edinburgh, the very special haunt of mist 
and east wind, and noisy all day and half the night with cars and 
waggons; a locality and condition upon which even shabby-genteel 
people looked down -- into this, of all environments, she, Alison 
Hepburn, had been born. It was injurious and insulting. And yet that 
wasn't half the enormity of her circumstances. Her father was a 
solemn, rigid Scotch Puritan, sincerely devout, she knew, upright, 
and of some dignity of character; but on that account all the more 
unworthy to be her father. For what had he done? He had married a 
woman unfit to be the mother of anybody. Her face grew dark at this 
thought. Her mother had been chosen by her father because of her 
strength of mind, her managing power, and her religious disposition. 
Beauty and temperament she had none. She was ill-made, and her bones 
were disproportionately small. 'Visiting the iniquity of the fathers 
upon the children? Yes,' she thought; 'it is iniquitous in a 
common-looking, commonplace man to marry an ugly, weak-bodied woman. 
My father believes that the heathen will be damned, even although 
they have never heard of the Gospel. Well, then, although he had 
never heard of the proper conditions of marriage, he deserves to be 
damned for having perpetuated ugliness, ill-shaped bones, and 
ill-conditioned blood. Oh! I would give every pinch of brain I have 
to be sweet and beautiful, with rounded, warm-tinted flesh, drawing 
all men's eyes! But I shall make men adore me for my poetry, or, at 
least, for the fame and money my poetry shall bring.' 

Again she made her calculations, concluding this time with the 
assurance that, even if she got only one hundred pounds, the price 
Alexander Smith had received for 'A Life Drama,' she would still be 
able to overcome the world. A hundred pounds would give her a year. 
In that time, and in London, she could write a great poem; and in 
that time, also, her fame would have spread, and she would receive a 
very much larger sum for her second venture. 

'And if,' she thought, as her depression deepened -- 'if the 
publisher will not give me anything, and I have to wait, or if I have 
difficulty in finding a publisher, I have these nine pounds, which 
will keep me easily for three months, and during that time I can get 
an engagement at a theatre.' 

Yes, of course, she was forgetting about that, the second string to 
her bow. Why hadn't she brought her prize for elocution with her? It 
would be certain to influence a manager. Then her spirits leapt up 
again, and she went over to herself her two best recitations -- 
Scott's 'Battle of Flodden' from 'Marmion,' and Aytoun's 'Death of 
Montrose.' With these she electrified herself, and before the 
excitement caused by them had passed, she fell into a doze. 

Something tugging at her dress wakened her. Opening her eyes, and 
remembering at once where she was, she was amazed to find on the seat 
beside her, and with two paws on her skirt, a white dog, long-nosed 
and woolly, munching her biscuits. First of all, she picked up her 
manuscript, fastened it, and replaced it in her pocket. Perhaps it 
had been looked at while she dozed; the idea hurt her. She thought 
not, however; for the other three passengers were all sound asleep. 
She felt a little afraid of the dog, who kept a sharp eye on her 
while he continued eating her biscuits; but before she could make up 
her mind how to deal with him, a harsh, sharp cry, very audible even 
above the clanking of the train, went off in the compartment: 'Heave 
away!' 

The dog, frightened out of his wits, sprang onto the hamper, and 
began to whine. Again the shriek was heard, louder and harsher than 
before, and the dog leapt, yelping, at one of the women, who started 
up in alarm. 

'Oh,' she said, looking about the carriage suspiciously, 'it's only 
you, is it? You naughty, naughty Lou-lou!' 

The woman cuffed the dog, not very severely, and then placed him in 
the hamper. 'I hope,' she said, with her impudent smile, as she 
fastened the lid securely, 'the dog didn't frighten you?'

'Oh no!' said Alison, flushing. 

'Heave away!' 

'What can that be?' exclaimed the woman. 

By this time the commotion in the compartment had awakened the other 
woman and the sailor. The latter, looking very shamefaced, wetted his 
lips, and said: 'I'm very sorry, ladies. It's only Juggernaut. I 
meant to tell you that he might start paying out language; but I 
couldn't somehow get the anchor up. Juggernaut's cut the cable, as it 
were. I'm not naturally backward, but just come off a two-years' 
voyage, and wondering to see ladies. That's all. Why, ma'am, for four 
months we never touched port; and we used to lower a boat in a calm, 
and pull round to have a look at the figurehead -- the Aurora, a fine 
bust of a woman, but nothing like real flesh and blood.' 

'Heave away! Tumble up!' 

'He's very angry,' said the sailor, 'at being kept in the dark so 
long. I thought he might sleep; but the motion of the train's new to 
him, as he never was in one before. He'd better have it out; so, 
asking your pardon, here's Juggernaut.' 

Whisking the handkerchief from the cage, the sailor displayed an 
Amazon green parrot. 

'I got him in Rio, quite a youngster, and christened him in Calcutta. 
He christened himself, you may say; for Juggernaut was the first word 
he said.' 

'Juggernaut! Now, Renzo was no sailor. The cook's a blooming 
Chinaman!' said the parrot. 

'He's got a lot to say. I think missy had better put her fingers in 
her ears,' said the sailor, looking apologetically at Alison. 

The girl moved uneasily, but kept her eyes on the parrot, who glared 
about with an unchanging look of clownish surprise -- the stage 
surprise of the low comedian. 

'Damn her eyes!' went on the parrot. 'Splice! Aurora -- Auro-ra! 
Beautiful Juggernaut! Keel-haul the cook! Keel-haul the cook! The 
cook's a blooming Chinaman!' 

'He's going to say all he knows,' said the sailor, looking again 
towards Alison. 'Walnuts wouldn't stop him.' 

Shrieking maledictions, the bird hopped to the lowest bar in its 
cage. After a few moments' silence, it lowered its head, stretched 
out its neck, and, fixing Alison with one of its astonished eyes, 
uttered very distinctly a string of oaths, scraps of prayers, and 
tags of songs. The women laughed, and Alison hid her face behind 
Byron. 

'I'm Juggernaut -- beautiful Juggernaut! The cook's a blooming 
Chinaman!' 

Having wound up its oration with these words, the parrot resumed its 
night-perch, picked three feathers in slow succession from one of its 
wings, yawned, and disposed itself to sleep. 

'He has what you call a vocabulary,' said the sailor, readjusting his 
handkerchief about the cage. 'Where are we?' he added, as the train 
began to slacken. 

Alison looked out, and saw empty rainy streets shining darkly in the 
many-shadowed lights of the gas-lamps; below the level of the 
railway, and also sloping above it, long undulations and precipitous 
hills of houses wheeled past the slowing train. 

'Why, it's Newcastle already!' exclaimed the sailor. 'Well, 
goodnight, asking your pardon for Juggernaut.' 

Five minutes after the departure of the sailor, the train moved out 
of the station. Alison thought they were going back to be shunted; 
but as the speed increased, she imagined that perhaps there had been 
some mistake. 

'Am I all right for London?' she asked. 

'All right,' answered one of the women. 

'We seem to be going back.' 

'We go out of Newcastle as we go in.' 

'Couldn't we go right through?' 

'How should I know?' retorted the woman, tucking herself up in her 
corner as her companion had already done in hers. 

Alison was hurt a little by the rebuff; but one thing pleased her -- 
her fellow-travellers were not in the least concerned and curious 
about her. She had been apprehensive of inquisitive companions on her 
journey, and had meant to talk of going to see an aunt and of luggage 
in the van. It was now evident that there was nothing unusual in her 
appearance or her mode of travelling, and she took her present 
experience as a prophecy of exemption from molestation in her 
enterprise. Nevertheless, she felt very wretched. The awkward sailor, 
the foul-mouthed parrot, the two sordid women grunting and snoring 
beside her, the cold raw night, and the monotonous rush and jangle of 
the train, oppressed her like a nightmare. The intolerance with which 
she regarded everything that disturbed her intense self-preoccupation 
found vent in scowls and muttered execrations : 'What a beastly 
train! These dirty old hags!' She closed her eyes tightly, and 
endeavoured to compel her thoughts into the desired track; but her 
efforts were in vain, her immediate surroundings having gradually 
filled her nerves as a coil of wire is charged with electricity. At 
last she had recourse to Byron. She read here and there feverishly, 
and then searched out the passage in 'Cain' that had helped her 
already: 

'Souls who dare use their immortality.' 

She kept to that line; she struck it over and over as a piano-tuner 
strikes a note; she twisted and turned its meaning about until it 
said again the thing she wanted. She was, indeed, daring to use her 
immortality. She was immortal -- not, she thought, with a curl of her 
lip, in the old ridiculous sense; she carried her immortality in her 
pocket. This that she had written could never die; it would go 
sounding on in hearts and brains, echoing through the ages. Being an 
immortal, she had a right to behave at once as an immortal; therefore 
she freed herself from parental control, and, a phrase she loved, 
took her life into her own hands. In thought she had been free for 
years, and now she must have perfect freedom. She had done, and was 
now going to London to do more effectually, what she had been sent 
into the world for: certainly not sent by God -- oh, Nature, not by 
God in any understanding of the word. Alison Hepburn was rabid with 
Theophobia, a disease of young minds not uncommon in countries where 
religious bigotry prevails. She was flying from what was to her a 
hateful idea of God, represented by strict parents, and by a wretched 
Sabbath of three long services. She was flying from John Knox. Of her 
poetry no specimen shall be given; it was written, some in blank 
verse, some in ballad measure, and some in the manner of the rhymed 
version of the Psalms used in Scotland.

Between Newcastle and Doncaster, Alison's spirits fell far below 
zero. She began to realize how much she was depending on the 
immediate receipt of a large sum for her manuscript, and what a 
forlorn hope it was. She saw that she had been imagining, not 
believing, herself successful. She thought for the first time of the 
consternation at home, and for a brief moment realized that she cared 
a little for her father and mother, and that they loved her. She 
peered out of the window, but saw on the black screen night -- what 
she wished to forget. She returned to Byron, but the famous verse was 
ineffective:

'Souls who dare use their immortality.' 

It was nonsense; life consisted of an hour, a moment at a time. She 
read the next line scornfully: 

'Souls who dare look the Omnipotent tyrant in.' 

Some of her lines had weak endings, but none so weak as that. 
Besides, 'It's just havers,' she thought; 'because it was only when 
people began to disbelieve in an Omnipotent tyrant that they began to 
be cheeky to Him.' Was the Venice butcher's wife omnipotent? No; yet 
she had been Byron's mistress. Were her father and mother omnipotent? 
No; and yet -- her head swam. 

Before they arrived at Doncaster her travelling companions, the women 
with the bulging eyes, produced sandwiches and bottles of stout, and 
liberated their poodle. Alison ate some of her biscuits and gave some 
to the dog. 

'You mustn't deprive yourself,' said one of the women, offering her a 
sandwich, which she took. 

'Won't you have a drop of stout?' asked the other. 

She swallowed half a tumblerful eagerly. It was the first alcoholic 
liquor she had ever drunk, having been brought up a total abstainer. 
She found the taste nauseous, but the effect amazed her, and she 
began to talk. 

'I'm running away from home,' she said, with a cheerful smile, 
persuading herself that she felt nice and comfortable. 

'We know that, my dear,' said one of the women. 

'How do you know?' she asked, startled. 

'Everything about you tells us.' 

'Do girls often run away from home?' 

'Half of them do. We did.' 

'It's quite common, then,' said Alison, with an air of disgust. 

'And stupid,' added one of the women, 'unless you're very 
good-looking. If I'd stayed at home and kept straight, I'd have had a 
house of my own and a decent shopkeeper for a husband, and ease and 
plenty. Instead of which -- ' 

She shrugged her shoulders. 

'The Sisters Tomboy with their wonderful poodle Lou-lou,' said the 
other. 'Have some more stout.' 

Alison hesitated, but drank off another half-tumblerful. 

'Do you know,' she said, 'this is the first intoxicating liquor I 
have ever tasted? I was made to join a Band of Hope when I was eight, 
and ever since I was twelve I have wanted to break the pledge, but 
couldn't think of going into a public-house. Thank you very much.' 

The Sisters Tomboy grinned at each other and said nothing. 

'I'm going on to London,' said Alison. 

'We go out at Doncaster.' 

Alison stretched herself on the seat, feeling in the humour for a 
good talk; but while she was still considering how far she might 
consult the Sisters Tomboy regarding her procedure in London, she 
fell asleep, and so soundly that the stoppage at Doncaster failed to 
waken her, although the shock of the train starting again did. She 
rubbed her eyes. The Sisters Tomboy had gone, and two men were in the 
carriage. They sat opposite each other, bent forward and absorbed in 
conversation. One of them was old and heavily built; his eyes were 
small, gray, and dull; he had a dirty-white beard and moustache; his 
puffed cheeks and drooping nose were brick-red. She noted his silk 
hat, brown and rough with age, and broken-brimmed; his frayed and 
greasy clothes; and thick watch-chain of brass. The other, a younger 
man, was better dressed: his silk hat was new and glossy; he had 
sparkling rings on his fingers, and his watch-chain seemed to be of 
gold. But the man himself was uglier even than his companion. His 
black eyes, protruding and bloodshot, seemed about to blaze up and 
burst out of his head. His shaved chin, puckered like a many-eyed 
potato, receded among coarse black whiskers; his nose was swollen and 
red, his cheeks blotched, and his brow of a sickly white. This 
loathsome creature had no voice; with swollen veins and continuous 
restrained gesture he emitted husky, staccato whispers, to which the 
other replied in soft, oily tones. Neither paid any heed to Alison, 
but she watched them, fascinated. The sailor, with his parrot, 
belonged to a world she understood in some degree; so did the Sisters 
Tomboy; but what were these? From what rookery had these nightbirds 
issued, and on what mission? 

At last the two men, having settled the point in dispute, lounged 
back into their corners. The younger one looked at himself in the 
window and rubbed his nose fiercely. Suddenly remembering, he sat up, 
and produced from behind him a half-bottle of port wine, a tumbler, 
and a white handkerchief in which were wrapped two sponge-cakes. He 
filled the tumbler and handed it with one of the cakes to his 
companion, who drank off the wine slowly but without a pause. The 
younger man took the rest of the wine; then both ate their 
sponge-cakes. There was no pledging each other; nothing at all was 
said about what they were doing; some common object preoccupied them 
intensely. 

When the sponge-cakes were finished, the younger man took from his 
pocket a flat bottle containing whisky. This having been emptied, the 
tumbler and both bottles were flung out of the window, and the 
conversation resumed. The two men talked all the way to York, the 
elder rolling out long sentences, soft and oily, the younger growing 
huskier in his whispers, and less restrained in gesture. Alison could 
not make out a single word, but she watched them, hardly conscious of 
thought or feeling. As the train stopped at York Station both men 
became silent, and the younger stared at Alison. 

'By God!' she heard him croak in the lessening noise of the slowing 
train, 'she's uglier awake than asleep.' 

'So much the better for her,' said the other. 

She wondered vaguely for a moment if she had been the subject of 
their whole conversation. But that was impossible, for both resumed 
their look of intense preoccupation the moment they had uttered their 
rude remarks, and before the train stopped they jumped out and walked 
away quickly in a purposeful manner. 

All the way from Doncaster to York these men had seemed like a 
hideous vision, utterly unreal and impossible. At the last moment, in 
their entire loathsomeness and brutality, they had trampled straight 
across her heart and they had done it with the utmost indifference, 
as she herself in a preoccupied mood might crush a worm visible in 
her path but unperceived by her inner sense. She had often told 
herself she was plain, but nobody had ever called her ugly before. 
She had understood the absence of comment -- or had she not? Perhaps 
people would have talked to her of her appearance had she been only 
plain-looking. Had she heard the truth for the first time? Was she 
ugly? 

She began to pace the compartment, impatient till the train should 
start. There was suspense in the stoppage -- an added misery. The 
guard, passing, saw her.

'Twenty minutes here,' he said, opening the door. 

'Oh!' she exclaimed, and got out. 

She was very stiff and very cold, and walked about the platform to 
warm herself. She thought how comfortable a bed is -- to lie down 
secure, with no concern for the morrow, in her father's house. She 
walked more quickly; she ran as if to escape her thoughts. She 
searched about for a clock. A few minutes to four! How had her father 
and mother spent the night? 

The platform was almost deserted. One or two groups of men in caps 
and heavy overcoats stood at the doors of smoking compartments. Where 
had the passengers gone to? To her surprise, never having travelled 
at night before, she saw that the refreshment-room was open. She went 
in and drank some coffee. There were over a score of people eating 
and drinking at the bar. The rattle of cups and saucers, the steaming 
tea and coffee, the sharp orders, chatter, an occasional spluttering 
laugh, and the bright light, soothed her, and then made her heart 
ache again. She remained in the refreshment-room until a porter 
announced that the train was on the point of departure. In the rush, 
she made up her mind to get into a compartment with some cheerful 
people if she could; but her heart failed her as she ran along the 
platform, and saw the others jumping in among their snug wraps, 
newspapers, books, open bags -- the encampments of expert travellers. 
She got into an empty compartment -- probably (she couldn't be sure) 
the one she had left; and from York to Grantham, from Grantham to 
Peterborough, she had it to herself. 

Her dream was ended -- her mad folly had run its course; but the 
train went on. The rattling glass in either end of the compartment 
reflected her ugly haggard face. She felt as if the universe were one 
immense block of adamant, through which the train was gnawing and 
drilling a way for itself like a fierce, instinctive worm. Half 
choked, she let down one of the sashes, and looked out. The cold wind 
rushed at her throat; but the world was there still -- a drifting 
blackness above, a rushing blackness below, the lower blackness 
branded blacker in spots and stripes where trees and hedges clustered 
and stretched. She leaned out of the window until she was chilled to 
the bone; then she raised the sash and lay down on the seat with her 
back to the engine. 

'By God! she's uglier awake than asleep.' 

'So much the better for her.' 

These words kept burning into her brain. Plain she had guessed 
herself to be, but with wonderful eyes and an irresistible expression 
when she chose; and then her cloud of hair, on which she could sit! 
She rose up, tore off her hat, uncoiled her hair, shook it about her 
shoulders, and looked in the window; looked her sweetest, smiled -- 
her teeth were good -- and said soft nothings to an imaginary lover. 
She coiled and uncoiled her hair, pressed her face to the window to 
stare into the depths of her eyes, started back at arm's length -- to 
the middle of the compartment, to the opposite end -- and looked at 
herself from every point of view and possible distance. She was 
angular, pale, and her features were very irregular; but surely she 
was not ugly! She assured herself that, over certain temperaments, 
she was bound to exercise an irresistible fascination. She recited, 
she sang, she danced; she grew warm, her courage rose, and she 
laughed aloud. Hastily doing up her hair, and putting on her hat 
again, she picked up Byron, and sat down in the middle of one seat 
with her feet on the other. She read a piece of 'Manfred,' a piece of 
'Childe Harold,' a piece of 'Don Juan,' but without pleasure, without 
a transference of energy. She grew drowsy, and had to close the book. 
Soon, however, as she shut her eyes and tried to sleep, her fancy was 
on the alert. She saw her father's stern but not unkindly face; and 
her mother's, worn and deeply lined, with all the hardness gone out 
of it. That was unendurable. She sat up again. She stamped up and 
down the compartment to keep herself warm. She set her teeth; she 
grew dogged. The train was going on; she must go on. She would find a 
publisher; she would go on the stage; she would make money; she would 
grow famous, and have men at her feet. The blood mounted to her head, 
and the dream of success held her again, although with no firm grip, 
till the train stopped at Grantham. As soon as it resumed its 
journey, the memory of her last travelling companions returned. 

'By God! she's uglier awake than asleep.' 

'So much the better for her.' 

All the way to Peterborough, her sense of her own lack of physical 
charm filled her with dull pain. Why was she not beautiful, with rich 
blood and a gracious body? Why was she not as beautiful as she often 
felt -- as she always felt in the presence of beautiful things, 
visible or heard: paintings, or sunsets, or music, or the sound of 
waters? Wrath possessed her again; her father and mother, and all the 
unlovely circumstances of her life, were severally indicted and 
condemned. 

Day had broken for some time before she took note of it. Veils and 
scraps of mist hung about the leafless woods; rags and tufts had 
caught in the hedges, and widths and stretches of it lay on the 
fields like immense webs wringing wet and spread out to bleach. The 
gray dawn, labouring with clouds and the stubborn wintry night, got 
into the sky by stealth. Her compartment appeared like a world within 
a world, lit by the ghastly twilight of the yellow gas-lamp and the 
dull beams of morning. Sick with cold, hunger, and discomfort, and 
exhausted by an emotional conflict of nearly eight hours, she felt 
her spirits, like the yellow gas-lamp, grow pale in the new day. She 
suffered passively for a time, till her misery became unbearable. 
Then she let down one of the sashes, and flung Byron out of the 
window. The relief this action brought was of short duration; but 
while she was still fingering her manuscript in her pocket with 
thoughts of tearing it up, the train stopped at Peterborough. A 
countryman and some businessmen came into the compartment beside her. 
They seemed to her to bring with them a pleasant odour of breakfast, 
of cheerful parlours, and warm kitchens, where the ruddy firelight 
shone on gleaming dish-covers. She thought of breakfast at home -- 
hot rolls and the fragrance of coffee in the sitting-room; 
hot-pressed newspapers in the shop. She shuddered, and shut her eyes 
tight. For several minutes she sat quivering like a creature bound 
and gagged, and in the grip of some torture engine. At last, quite 
worn out, she fell into a half-doze, half-swoon, which continued 
until the ticket-collector aroused her at Finsbury Park. 

'Is this London?' she said. 

'Yes,' replied the collector. 

'Do I get out here, then?' 

'What part of London do you want?' 

'Does the train go on?' 

'Yes; to the terminus.' 

'Ah, yes, the terminus. I'll go to the terminus.' 

In her abject state the mere word 'terminus ' did her good. Here was 
something that had an end. Probably, if the means had been to her 
hand when she stepped out of the train at King's Cross, she would 
have killed herself. 

There were not very many passengers. Two or three of these were met 
by friends, and formed little glowing knots, with hearty 
hand-shakings and kisses. Bustle about luggage, the getting into 
cabs, and the giving of addresses, had never before seemed to Alison 
significant of anything except the pettiness of life. Now her feeling 
was that no possible detail of interest that attaches one to life can 
be petty. She saw a well-dressed girl, not much older than herself, 
step into a hansom, and tip the porter who handed up her portmanteau 
and told the driver where to go. To possess luggage and to drive to 
an address was to be acquainted, and to have affairs of business or 
pleasure. 

She, Alison Hepburn, was utterly alone, the victim of a mad dream 
that had swallowed her and cast her up again, a half-digested morsel. 
Her soul would bear the marks of the eating acid forever. It was 
clear to her as she stood, forlorn and shivering, on the platform at 
King's Cross, that there were hardly a dozen passable lines in her 
whole manuscript. A crimson flame lit her face as she thought of her 
confident expectations a few hours back -- if not at the rate of 
Campbell's 'Pleasures of Hope,' then surely at the rate of Smith's 
'Life Drama!' She walked quickly down the platform, pulling her nine 
greasy Scotch notes out of her bodice; but she did not leave the 
station. 

It was one of the most dismal parts of London on which she looked out 
-- the junction of Euston Road, Gray's Inn Road, Pentonville Road, 
and York Road -- and there was a fog. Two men looked out with her; 
they were about to separate, and they spoke for a minute. 

'Then, you'll have that stuff ready for me by half-past twelve?' said 
one, who was tall, well dressed, and well looking, and who spoke very 
pleasantly.

Yes,' said the other, short, shabby, husky; 'between that and one.' 

'Oh, I must have it by one. You must bring it to me not later than 
twelve-fifty.' 

'That's impossible,' said the other doggedly. 'Send or come at 
half-past twelve. If it's ready then, you'll have it. If not, you or 
your messenger must wait.' 

'Where will you be?' 

'I'll be in the Manuscript Room.' 

'Very well.' 

'What a beastly fog!' 

'I always like a fog,' said the well-dressed man. 

'Manuscript Room.' 

'Manuscript Room.' 

She knew she had overheard the talk of two men in some literary 
bypath -- some lion and his jackal. The jackal stepped into a green 
bus that drifted into sight and was gone; for during the few seconds 
she had stood at the exit of the station the fog had become a dense 
sooty cloud. She had been aware of a tumult of busses, cars, waggons, 
and cabs, and had noticed the four crossroads when she first looked 
out. Now she felt as if she were occupying a hole in an immense 
dripping, dirty sponge. Some yellow dregs of light were suspended in 
the filthy moisture, and there was a muffled sound in her ears. She 
looked after the lion, who had returned into the station. He went to 
the cab-rank, walking with such ease and firmness, she thought. She 
had not seen the kind of man before -- not among the Edinburgh 
lawyers, or the actors whom she had watched at the theatre doors; not 
in Princes Street, and not at Aberdour in the summer holidays. He 
looked to her a high creature from a different sphere. She saw his 
face distinctly, in spite of the fog, when the cab passed out of the 
station, for she bent forward and stared. He noticed her, and looked 
back, with a mixed expression of surprise and amusement, a touch of 
scorn, an affectation of indifference. It was a quaint, wild face he 
saw; pale, begrimed; glaring, fiery-eyed, out of a tangle of black 
hair. She saw a strong chin, a small firm mouth, a straight nose, and 
black-blue eyes; she saw yellow hair and a smooth fair face, and she 
hungered for them. 

As soon as the fog had engulfed the cab, she replaced seven of her 
notes in her bosom, and turned back into the station. A porter 
directed her to the booking-office. 

'When is there a train for Edinburgh?' she asked of the clerk. 

'In five minutes.' 

'Oh! Give me a third single, then.' 

She laid down the two notes she had in her hand, and the clerk paused 
in the act of stamping the ticket. He picked up the notes, and held 
them close to the gas. She wondered what was to happen. Was she to be 
arrested for something? 

'These are only worth nineteen and six-pence here,' he said. 

'Oh! I'll give you another, then,' she rejoined, relieved, and not 
thinking what she was saying. 

'You don't need. Instead of thirty-two and eightpence, it will cost 
you thirty-three and eightpence, as it were.' 

'I see,' she said. 

When she had received the ticket and her change, she walked about the 
departure platform in an aimless way. The porter who had shown her to 
the booking-office, having heard her destination, said to her: 

'Beg pardon, lady, but you'll miss your train if you don't mind.' 

'Oh, where is it?' 

'This,' he said, opening a third-class carriage at her side. 

She gave the porter half a crown and went in. Hardly had she seated 
herself, when the train started. 

Her journey back to Edinburgh was one long blank misery, with here 
and there a vivid flash of pain. Worn out with excitement, and weak 
with cold and lack of food and lack of sleep, she sat motionless in a 
corner of the compartment. Passengers came and went at the various 
stations. Sometimes she was alone, sometimes the compartment was 
full; it was all alike to her. She slept no part of the way, but a 
kind of trance held her, in which she was conscious only of defeat 
and self-contempt, except at intervals, when she heard inhuman voices 
say, 'By God! she's uglier awake than asleep!' 'So much the better 
for her'; when the face of the lion mocked her out of the fog; or 
when she turned and stung herself with the taunt that her flight was 
a piece of mad folly, because she was weak and ugly -- beauty and 
strength would have gone on undismayed. Her mind had been so fully 
occupied, and her thoughts had wandered so far back and so far 
forward during the up-journey, that on arriving at London it had 
seemed as if she had been travelling for weeks. But at the end of the 
way back, when she heard one of the passengers say, 'Yes, this is 
Edinburgh,' she could scarcely believe her ears. Physically and 
mentally exhausted, for her the hours and the miles had slipped past 
like minutes and footsteps, uncounted and unnoted. 

She came out at the Haymarket instead of going on to the Waverley 
Station, because the former was further from her home. She had 
determined suddenly that her brother and sister ought to be asleep 
before she returned, and it was still nearly two hours to their 
bedtime. At the Haymarket Station she was half an hour from home, and 
so that disposed of a quarter of the time she had to wait. 

She took a seat on a bench on the platform. Her mind was a blank -- 
numb, like a bloodless finger. After a few minutes she went to the 
refreshment-room, hardly knowing what she was doing, and drank some 
tea. As she had eaten very little for twenty-four hours, the tea, 
inferior station infusion as it was, had a powerful effect. Her 
nerves grew tense at once; she felt light-headed, and went out into 
the street like one walking on air, as the saying is. The raw east 
wind was grateful to her senses; it smelt of home, and carried also 
the fragrance of the romantic dreams and high thoughts she had been 
accustomed to weave as she walked in the windy evenings. Breathing 
hard and stepping quickly, she soon reached the west end of Princes 
Street. The mass of the Castle and the Castle rock, faintly but 
firmly outlined against the night sky, like a piece of ancient 
darkness that had grown solid and taken shape, seemed about to 
overwhelm her. Her eye wavered along the ridge of the High Street; 
the tall dark houses trembled and grew steady; ghostly lights 
flickered up behind them from shop-windows and lurked about the 
shadowy crown of St. Giles. 

Mechanically, Alison turned towards home. She recognised at once that 
she was obeying a habit, and that she would be home sooner than she 
had intended if she went in the direction her steps had chosen. 
Nevertheless, she let herself go. She had come back to the native 
ground from which she had wrenched herself, and the roots were 
stretching instinctively towards their old grooves. Yet when she 
arrived at the street in which she lived, her first impulse was to 
turn and run. The light from her father's shop streamed across the 
dreary way; the shop was always open late, as penny packets of paper 
and envelopes were required by the people in the neighbourhood till 
after ten o'clock. She saw the school-bags hanging at the door, and 
the tissue-paper chimney ornaments in the window. It was this mean 
life she had run away from, and to it she was returning, a convicted 
fool and coward. Leaning against a lamppost, she began to defend 
herself. The long, cold, miserable railway journey was the cause of 
her defeat. If London were an hour away, and she could have started 
in the morning! But this was no preparation for what she was about to 
do. She would not be irresolute now. Lifting her dress, she ran along 
the street and into the shop. 

Her father, who was arranging some new goods on his shelves, knew at 
once, although his back was to the door, that his daughter had come 
back. He turned round slowly; his face was white, and working; his 
large dark eyes lightened and clouded with emotion. 

'Well, Alison?' he said, in a judicial tone, through which a tremor 
shot. 

'I've been very bad,' said Alison sheepishly. 

Mr. Hepburn finished what he had been about. Alison clasped and 
unclasped her hands, and then pulled off her gloves as if they had 
been burning her. 

'You had better go to your mother,' said Mr. Hepburn.

Alison passed through the shop into the parlour, where her mother was 
sewing. 

'Oh!' cried Mrs. Hepburn, rising. 'Where have you been?' 

'Nowhere,' replied Alison. 'In a train. I went to London, and came 
back.' 

'London!' said Mrs. Hepburn, sitting again. 

Mrs. Hepburn was older-looking than her years -- a tall, scraggy 
woman, with a sallow complexion. Alison had inherited her broad brow 
and wide, deep-set eyes, but the facial resemblance ended there; the 
daughter's irregular features were in marked contrast with Mrs. 
Hepburn's straight nose and large, firm mouth and chin. 

The parlour, a small square room with a moderately high ceiling, was 
lit by a single gas jet from a chimney bracket. On the walls were 
several illuminated texts, and two engravings -- one of the Royal 
Family, the other a bird's-eye view of Edinburgh. The furniture 
consisted of a Pembroke table, chairs, and a sofa of mahogany 
upholstered in horsehair, a small glazed bookcase, and a cheap inlaid 
whatnot. 

'Are you tired? You must be tired,' said Mrs. Hepburn. 'You'd better 
go to bed.' 

Alison stood still, staring at her mother, who had resumed her 
sewing. 

'Where are Tom and Katey?' she asked at length. 

'In bed. I sent them sooner than usual.' 

'I am tired,' said Alison. 'Goodnight.' 

'Goodnight,' said her mother. 

Alison went upstairs to her room, placed her pound notes in a drawer, 
washed her hands and face, undressed quickly, and lay down. She had 
never in her life before felt so completely at rest; and the repose 
of her mind was rather deepened than disturbed by a vague wonder. 

Before she fell asleep her mother came in and lit the gas. She had 
brought a tray, with tea and bread-and-butter. 

'You must be hungry, Alison,' she said. 'Sit up and take this.' 

Alison obeyed. While she ate, her mother, in a nervous manner, lifted 
and laid things on the mantelshelf and the toilet-table. Then she 
made an orderly disposition of the clothes which Alison had thrown 
off in a heap, and this actual employment restored in a measure her 
self-control. 

When Alison had finished, Mrs. Hepburn took the tray, and said, with 
a return of her nervous manner:

'Where did you get the money, Alison?' 

'It was my own money,' said Alison; 'I saved it from the wages father 
gives me. It took me three years to save it.' 

'I see,' said Mrs. Hepburn, trying to hide her relief. 

She tucked in the bedclothes, seemed about to speak again, but said 
only 'Goodnight.' Then she put out the gas and pulled open the door, 
which had been ajar. Instead of leaving the room, however, she stood 
suddenly stock still. Alison heard her give up the tray, and come 
back to her bedside. 

'Alison,' she said, whispering, 'were you alone?' 

'Quite alone.' 

'Well, goodnight again.' 

Mrs. Hepburn raised her voice, but not loud enough to prevent her 
daughter from hearing a deep long-drawn sigh at the door. 

The most prominent among the ideas that came dimly before Alison's 
mind as she fell asleep was a sense of power acquired over her father 
and mother by her exploit. She had expected to be at their mercy, but 
found herself, in a way, mistress of the situation. 

In the morning her mother advised her not to rise until her brother 
and sister had gone to school. She had breakfast in bed, and then 
slept again for two hours. At eleven she rose and went to the 
parlour, where her father awaited her. Mrs. Hepburn attended to the 
shop that forenoon. 

Alison blushed fiery red as she entered the parlour, for on the table 
lay her manuscript. 

'I have been glancing through this,' said Mr. Hepburn, lifting and 
dropping 'A Godless Universe.' 'I'm no great judge of poetry, but 
some of it seems not badly written. I think it's nonsense, of course, 
too nonsensical to be blasphemous. Was it this took you to London, 
Alison?' 

'Yes.' 

A subtle smile softened Mr. Hepburn's face and flickered about the 
corners of his dark eyes. 

'You had plenty of money with you, your mother tells me. Why did you 
come back?' 

Alison said nothing. 

'I believe it was really at bottom some affection for your father and 
mother that brought you back. Was it, Alison?' 

'Yes, yes,' replied Alison, conscious of an attempt to appear more 
deeply stirred than she was. 

'Well, what do you want to do?' asked her father, an anxious look 
coming into his face. 

'I want to write; I feel that I have something to say.' 

'How can you have anything to say? You're only a lassie yet.' 

'Well, then, I have a need to say something.' 

'Yes; but how are you going to live? If you leave the shop, I shall 
have to hire an assistant, and shall have nothing to give you.' 

'I'll stay in the shop,' said Alison, 'though I hate it.' 

'I hate it, too. I may tell you, Alison, that it was just such 
restlessness as is now appearing in you that stranded me here. I know 
how difficult it is to learn from the experience of others; but it is 
as sure as you are sitting there, that if you don't stick to the shop 
your life will be one of misery. That I can foresee.' 

'What did you want to be, father?' asked Alison, forgetting herself 
in the new light thrown on her father's character. 

'I shall tell you of my foolish days. My father wished me to be a 
lawyer, and I studied law for several years. When he died, I 
persuaded my mother to enter me for the Church; then I shifted to 
medicine; then I wished to be a medical missionary; but, instead of 
studying, I wasted my time at revival meetings. I spent about eight 
years at the University altogether, eating up my father's savings. My 
mother had carried on my father's business -- a very good stationery 
and fancy business in Princes Street -- but her employés cheated 
her, and we were bankrupt before I had acquired even the rudiments of 
a profession. It was then we came here, and it was then I learned 
that religion is more than sentiment, that without works faith is a 
mere prurience, that love for God without duty to God is an illicit 
love.' Here Mr. Hepburn, whose speech had grown fervid, paused 
abruptly. 'In the circumstances,' he said, resuming, 'it is odd that 
I should be explaining myself to you. I am afraid you have a very 
hard heart, Alison. But I shall never urge religion upon you. Well, 
then, my lass, are you quite prepared to go on as before?' 

'Yes,' said Alison, as heartily as she could. 'Oh, father!' she 
exclaimed, suddenly understanding, although scarcely feeling at all, 
how gentle he was with her. 

She had never really had a talk with her father before. His hard life 
had made him outwardly stern, and his children shunned him. 

'I hope,' he said, laying his hand on his daughter's head, as he left 
the room, 'this will work for good to us all.' 

It was said and done conventionally, and spoilt entirely the effect 
of the interview. 

When her father had gone, Alison picked up her manuscript and turned 
to her favourite pieces. 

'I'm damned if they aren't good,' she said hotly. 

She put some dozen pages in her pocket and thrust the rest in the 
fire. She then went to the bookcase to select a book, but her mother 
entered from the shop. 

'Now, Alison,' Mrs. Hepburn said, 'I hope you are going to do what 
your father wants. He is very stern-like. You've not been thwarting 
him?' 

'Oh no!' 

'You'll be wise not to. You'll find it impossible to live at 
loggerheads with your father, his sense of duty is so strong. If you 
please him, you may be certain you are doing what's right, Alison. Go 
into the shop and see if he wants you. I must look after the dinner.' 

'Oh!' said Mr. Hepburn when his daughter appeared. 'I forgot to say 
to you to try and be more agreeable with your mother -- more of a 
help to her. Your mother has a very strong sense of duty, and you may 
think her exacting sometimes, but she will never ask you to do what 
you can't or oughtn't to do.' 

'A strong sense of whose duty?' asked Alison. 'And what is duty?' 

'These are childish questions, Alison,' said her father. 

But Alison grinned, thinking what simple, grotesque people her father 
and mother were. What had duty to do with shopkeeping, and cooking 
and the making of beds? All those things, and all other things, 
became so utterly insignificant when she put the question: Could it 
ever have been anybody's duty to bring into the world such an ugly, 
ill-conditioned creature as Alison Hepburn? She picked up a toy 
hand-mirror and looked at herself in it, and then at her father. Mr. 
Hepburn, half divining something dreadful in her mind, left the shop 
quickly. 

Shortly after, Tom and Kate came home from school for dinner. They 
had clearly been cautioned about their first meeting with Alison, for 
they looked very conscious when they saw her. Tom, a lanky, 
ill-thriven boy of twelve, turned round as he was about to pass into 
the parlour, and stuck his tongue in his cheek. Kate, a lanky, 
ill-thriven girl of ten, blushed and looked sideways at her sister. 

Alison kept the shop while the rest were at dinner. She sold some 
copybooks, some pencils, some notepaper, and thought how wretched it 
was to be depending for a livelihood on such petty wants. How 
ineffably weak and foolish she had been to come back! She said 
nothing to Tom and Kate when they passed through the shop again on 
their return to school; and they; quarrelling hotly about a piece of 
slate-pencil, gave their sister neither word nor look. 

After dinner she read listlessly in several books. In the evening she 
walked along Princes Street eating her heart out. She was so utterly 
unequipped for the battle of life that there could never be any need 
for her to choose between shame and starvation. For a moment she 
envied the furred and scented women she passed. 

'By God! she's uglier awake than asleep.' 

'So much the better for her.' 

If somebody would only put an iron mask on her and shut her up in a 
cage! If -- 

'Oh, Miss Hepburn! How do you do?' 

It was James Williamson, the son of a wholesale stationer, with whom 
her father dealt. The Williamsons were members of the same church as 
the Hepburns. James, a loutish, red-haired lad of twenty, travelled 
for his father; an adept at business, he was regarded by his friends 
and by himself as a social failure. Alison flushed when he stopped 
her; he and his attentions had not once crossed her memory during her 
journey. She never had thought of him at all. He had been to her a 
mere detail common to the nuisances of business and church-going, an 
odd creature who generally succeeded in shaking hands with her on 
Sunday in a bashful, surprised way, turning up in unexpected corners 
with his 'Oh, Miss Hepburn! How do you do?' It occurred to her for 
the first time that this man was wooing her, that here was a lover! 
She remembered in the instant of shaking hands how his business 
visits were generally paid in the evening when her father was at tea, 
and she alone behind the counter; and how he never would hear of her 
summoning her father, but stood looking at her and trying to talk 
until Mr. Hepburn returned to the shop. 

She gave him her hand and burst out laughing; it was such an odd 
sensation. Here was a man who desired her, wanted her, thought he 
needed her. She laughed again. 

'Oh,' said young Williamson, much disconcerted, 'I see you're quite 
well! I thought you weren't. Goodbye.' 

'But why did you think I was ill?' asked Alison, becoming serious. 

'You looked so white.'

Alison said nothing. She was wondering what attraction she could have 
for this stupid red-headed fellow. 

'Well, goodbye,' he said. 

'Won't you walk back with me?' she asked. 

James rubbed his hands, and stared. Then, with a gurgling laugh, he 
placed himself at her side, and assumed the position of escort in a 
very self-conscious manner. 

They walked on in silence for several minutes. 

'I say,' said James, after clearing his throat repeatedly, 'what a 
good reciter you are!' 

'Do you think so?' 

'Yes, you do it splendid. But you're awfully clever.' 

'How do you know I'm clever.' 

'Everybody says you are.' 

'Everybody!' 

'In the church, you know.' 

'What else do they say about me?' 

James looked askance at her. 

'Then, they do say other things about me. Tell me.' 

'Well -- mind you, it's only what they say.' 

'Of course.' 

'Well, you're conceited and stuck-up.' 

'And what do you think?' 

'Me!' 

'Yes.' 

'Oh, I don't mind if you are.' 

'Do you think me conceited and stuck-up?' 

'I can't express myself. You know I'm not clever. It's like this: I 
would like you to be conceited and stuck-up, but not -- with me.'

James, alarmed at what he had said, moved a little away, and fell 
half a step behind; but Alison turned towards him, laughing, and he 
pulled himself together immediately. 

'Do you read much?' asked Alison. 

'I haven't time, and I don't care for it. I suppose you're an awful 
reader.' 

'I haven't time, either, but I read as much as I can.' 

'Shakespeare and Scott and Carlyle, and all those old buffers, I 
suppose?' 

'I don't care much for Scott. He's no psychologist.' 

'Ah!' exclaimed James admiringly. 'Who's your favourite poet?' 

'Byron, I think.' 

'Ah! Byron! Ay. I say, do you know I'm going into partnership in a 
month?' 

'With your father?' 

'Yes. I'll have two hundred and fifty per ann.'

He watched her closely out of the tail of his eye to note the effect 
of this announcement; but it was not visible, which was 
disappointing. If he had no learning, he was about to have an income; 
and that was something to set off against the reading of Byron. 

'I suppose a man can live on two hundred and fifty a year?' said 
Alison. 

'Rather! Why, a man can marry on two hundred and fifty a year!' 

'Into misery,' said Alison, looking him square in the face. 

'Misery!' he exclaimed, standing still abruptly, while she half 
halted and moved on more slowly. 'But do you know what you're 
saying?' he cried, getting into line again. 'Plenty of people marry 
on a hundred.' 

'I don't call that marriage.' 

'Oh, you don't call it marriage?' he said, not knowing whether to be 
perplexed or amused. ' What would you call marriage, now?' 

'I don't know. Are you coming in?' 

They had arrived at the shop. 

'May I?' he said eagerly. 'Do you think I should?' 

'Father will be glad to see you.'

'I've no business, you know.' 

'Never mind.' 

Mr. Hepburn, surprised but not ill pleased, shook hands cordially, 
and asked the young man to go into the parlour. There the table was 
set for supper, and Mrs. Hepburn was busy at the fire. 

'This is a surprise!' she said. 

'Oh!' said James. 'I was coming down, at any rate, and met Miss 
Hepburn on the way.' 

'Well, you'll stay and have a bite of supper now you're here?' 

'Oh, thank you!' 

'We're very homely people, you know,' continued Mrs. Hepburn. 'But 
you won't object to take potluck. We have no servant, so we let the 
kitchen fire out after tea, and if there's any supper to cook, do it 
here.' 

'And a very good plan, too,' said James, beside himself with delight 
at the cordiality of his reception. 

Alison began to assist her mother, but Mrs. Hepburn declined her 
help. 

'Show Mr. Williamson the album,' she said.

Seated together on the sofa, they looked over the album, holding it 
between them. Young Mr. Williamson's eager interest in every 
photograph of which Alison chose to speak was very marked. Mrs. 
Hepburn noticed it, and cast an intelligent glance at the couple. 

'Oh, this is yourself, Miss Hepburn!' cried James, seizing the album, 
and holding it close to his face. 'It's like you,' he continued, 'and 
yet it's not like you. It doesn't do you justice. It doesn't bring 
out your expression, or your -- eh -- wonderful eyes.' 

'Don't be stupid!' said Alison. 

When the album was finished, James turned to the bookcase. A shelf of 
red and blue books, with heavily-gilt backs which no one could 
mistake, attracted his attention. He took down one and opened it. 

'Ah!' he exclaimed, with lifted eyebrows. 'Your prizes, Miss 
Hepburn!' He went over several of them quickly. 'Arithmetic, history, 
geography, English literature, elocution, French, general excellence 
-- first prizes in everything,' he said. 'It's too terrible. I never 
got a prize in my life.' 

'Oh, that doesn't mean anything, or, if it does, it means the 
opposite of what you think. Scott never got a prize, nor Shakespeare, 
I should think.' 

'No,' said James, perspiring with pleasure, his resemblance to Scott 
and Shakespeare never having struck him before. 

'It was the merest accident that I got all these prizes. There was 
nobody cleverer than me in the school, or I shouldn't have had them.' 

Apart from its modesty, which he adored, this was, in James's 
estimation, a most original way of looking at things. 

'Nobody cleverer! If there had been anybody cleverer! Well, that's a 
good one!' he said. 

'I mean,' explained Alison, 'that if there had been anybody at all 
clever in the school, I shouldn't have had them; I'm not clever. 
Scott and Shakespeare weren't clever. Women, as a rule, are cleverer 
than men. Mrs. Browning and George Eliot, for example, were far 
cleverer than Scott and Shakespeare. I mean, that these two women 
were given to sitting down doggedly and acquiring things, whereas 
Scott and Shakespeare let things come as they would. Mrs. Browning 
and George Eliot hunted out their mental food -- killed it, skinned 
it, cooked it, ate it -- and it was always tough to them; while Scott 
and Shakespeare -- why, they just drank it in without knowing it.' 

'Oh, Mr. Williamson,' said Mrs. Hepburn, 'she talks such nonsense! 
never mind her.' 

'Oh, it's not nonsense, Mrs. Hepburn,' James retorted. 'I never heard 
such things. Why, it's quite wonderful! You ought to have a class in 
the Sunday-school, Miss Hepburn. And Byron -- was Byron clever?' 

'No; he was a dunce all his life.' 

James chuckled and spluttered at this. Then he said, radiant at the 
idea of coming out with something critical: 

'By-the-by, Miss Hepburn, I thought you didn't like Scott? Now, you 
know; you placed him along with Shakespeare just now.' 

'Oh yes! But I know how great he was, although I don't quite like him 
in the meantime. After awhile I'll like him again. It's children and 
old people who read Scott most, they say.' 

Mr. Hepburn came in from the shop, and they sat down to the table. To 
the fried potatoes, which was the usual supper twice or thrice a 
week, Mrs. Hepburn had added a hash of the cold meat originally 
intended for next day's dinner; and there was coffee, 
bread-and-butter, oat-cake, and raspberry jam. James found everything 
very good indeed, and chatted with Mr. Hepburn about business and 
church matters. 

Immediately after supper Mr. Hepburn rose. 

'I have some accounts to finish,' he said. 'I wish you would come and 
help me, Annie.'

'Let me clear the table first,' said his wife.

'No; I'll do that,' said Alison. 

'Well, I must go now,' said James. 

'Must you?' queried Mr. Hepburn, in a disappointed tone. 

'There's no hurry, Mr. Williamson,' said Mrs. Hepburn reproachfully. 

'They'll be wondering what's come over me at home. I had no intention 
of being so late.' 

'In that case, we won't press you, Mr. Williamson,' said Mr. Hepburn. 

James reached for his hat. 

'Mr. Williamson's going to help me to clear away the dishes,' said 
Alison, with a heightened colour and a catch in her voice. 

'Oh, of course, with pleasure,' said James, upsetting a coffee-cup. 

'Alison!' exclaimed Mrs. Hepburn. 'For shame! Do you know what you're 
saying?' 

'But I want to,' said James. 

'You two old fogeys go away,' said Alison, with unusual briskness, 
and taking a liberty with her father and mother the like of which she 
had never used before. 'Mr. Williamson and I'll manage all right.' 

'Alison,' said Mrs. Hepburn, 'you're forgetting yourself entirely.' 

But her husband pulled her skirt, and they left the parlour together. 

Two cups were washed and dried in silence -- Alison very grave, James 
grinning from ear to ear. 

'Well, but,' stammered James at last, resuming the conversation that 
had been interrupted on entering the house, while he polished the 
third cup vigorously, 'if you can't marry on two hundred and fifty 
per ann., the world would begin to stop.' 

'But what could a husband and wife do on two hundred and fifty per 
ann., as you call it?' 

'Why, they could have a nice little house and a piano and a good 
general servant, and they could ask their friends to little parties; 
and when they came home from church-meetings and soirees and things, 
there's their cosy parlour all to themselves, a fine fire, and a bit 
of supper laid. And they could practise the hymns. Oh, you've no idea 
how comfortable it would be!' 

'I see.' 

'Well?' 

'But you couldn't go to a good seat in the theatre whenever you 
wanted to, or visit London and Paris now and again.' 

'No,' said James, in dull amazement. 'No.' 

'Do you go to the theatre often?' 

'Me! I never was in a theatre in my life. Were you?' 

'I only went once for half an hour -- on the sly, of course. I saw 
the first act of "Othello"  -- it made me quite giddy. Then the 
orchestra began after the curtain fell, and I felt like to cry out 
with anger. I wanted the play to go on, on, on. And I came away. But 
I mean to go now openly.' 

'Oh!' said James, at a loss. 'Of course,' he went on stammering, 'you 
being such a good elocutionist!'

'Yes,' said Alison, draining a saucer into the slop-basin in which 
she was washing the dishes. 'Wouldn't you like to go to the theatre?' 

'Well -- isn't it wrong? Of course, you're not a member of the 
church, and -- ' 

'No; but I can easily join it, can't I? 

'Oh!' said James, twisting his face in a perplexed grin. 

'Do you know what I did the other night?' 

'No.' 

'I went to London.' 

'To London?' 

'Yes; but I hear father and mother coming. Don't say anything about 
this before them.' 

'No, no, I won't,' said James, gratified by this secret 
understanding. 'But you must tell me all about it.' 

'So I will some day.' 

'Oh, but soon!' 

'Well, tomorrow night? Half-past eight on the North Bridge.' 

Alison remained in the parlour after her father and mother had gone 
to bed. Having read a little in an anthology of verse, she took from 
her pocket the few pages of 'A Godless Universe' which she had 
preserved. She went over them carefully, and without excitement. 

'What paltry trash!' she said, blushing deeply. 

The fire was almost out, but she gathered the embers together, and 
blew them into a blaze. Then she lit her manuscript, and, with a sick 
smile, watched it burn. 

'That's done,' she said, poking the charred pieces of paper into the 
glowing ash. 'We can practise the hymns!' she muttered, as she went 
upstairs to bed.