on the mantelpiece, observed her open the box and discover that it was empty, then heard her exclaim condolingly:
'They're all finished, I'm afraid! I'm sorry, dear! I was sure you had one or two left.'
'Finished?' exclaimed Nessie. 'That's terrible. I can't do without them. My head's bursting. I must have one at once.'
Mary looked at her sister's lowered face with solicitude, as she remarked:
'What can I do for you, dear? Would you like a cold cloth and vinegar on it?'
'I told you those were no good,' cried Nessie urgently. 'You'll need to get me a powder. Go out this very minute for me.'
Mary's expression grew doubtful and, after a pause, she said:
'I can hardly go out just now, dearie. There's the dinner to make and everything. Lie down a little and I'll rub your head.'
'Away and get the powder,' the other burst out. 'Can ye not do that one little thing for me you that's aye sayin' you want to help me? I'll not be right till I get one ye know that it's the only thing that eases me.'
After a moment's hesitation, during which she gazed compassionately at Nessie, Mary moved her hands slowly to the strings of her apron and untied them even more slowly.
'All right, dear! I can't see you suffer like that. I'll go and get them made up for you right away;' then, as she went out of the room, she added sympathetically, 'I'll not be a minute. Lie down and rest till I come back.'
Nessie lay down obediently, realising with an inward satisfaction that the minute would be a full hour, that she would have ample time to receive her letter and compose herself again before Mary could make the journey to the town, wait tediously at the chemist's for the compounding of the prescription, and return to her. She smiled faintly as she heard the front door close behind her sister; and this smile again unlocked her restraint, for that strangely artful expression returned to her face and she jumped up and ran eagerly into the parlour.
Yes! There was Mary going down the road, hurrying the poor thing to secure the powders, as though there were not two still in the house hidden in the dresser drawer, and passing actually, without a sign, the postman as he made his way towards her. He had something in his bag that would bring more relief than all the powders that Lawrie could ever give her. How slow he was, though!
It was, she perceived, Dan, the older of the two postmen who came upon this round, and the very one who used to hand in Matt's letters with such an air of consequential dignity, exclaiming importantly:
'Something worth while in that one by the look o' it.' No letter of Matt's had ever been so important as this one! Why did he not hurry? As she remained there, she felt vaguely that under the same circumstances of excitement and anticipation she had once before stood at this window in the parlour, and she became aware suddenly, without consciously seeking in her mind, that it had been on that day when Mamma had received the wire that had so upset her. She recollected the delicious thrill it had given her to hold the orange slip within her hand and remembered, too, how cleverly she had manoeuvred to ascertain the ignorance of Grandma Brodie upon the matter. Now she did not fear that her letter would be discovered by the old woman who, half blind and almost wholly deaf, kept to her room except when the call of meal times withdrew her from it.
Dan was getting nearer, leisurely crossing and recrossing the street, hobbling along as though he had corns upon every toe, wearing his heavy bag on his bent back like a packman. Still, how slow he was! Yet now, strangely, she did not wish quite so ardently that he should hurry, but rather that he should take his time and leave her letter till the last. Everybody in the road seemed to be getting letters to-day, and all, as she desired, before she received hers. Would John Grierson have had his yet? Much good it would do him if he had. She would have liked dearly to see the chawed look upon his face when he opened it. As for herself, she did not now want a letter at all; it was upsetting and she knew so well she had won the Latta that it was not worth the trouble of opening an envelope to confirm it. Some envelopes were difficult to open!
Yet here was Dan actually advancing to her house, causing her to tremble all over, making her gasp as he passed the gate carelessly as if aware that there could now be no letters for the Brodies then, as he stopped suddenly and returned, sending her heart leaping violently into her throat.
An age passed before the doorbell rang; but it did ring and she was compelled, whether she now wished it or not, to pull herself away from the window and advance to the door not with the skipping eagerness that she had displayed when fetching the telegram but slowly with a strange detached sense of unreality as though she still stood by the window and watched her own form move deliberately from the room.
The letter, long, stiff and important, with a blue shield upon the back, was in Dan's hand and her gaze became fixed upon it as she stood, unconscious of the smile which crinkled his veined, russet cheek and showed his tobacco-stained teeth, almost unconscious of the old postman himself yet dimly hearing him say, even as she expected, 'Something worth while in that one, by the look o' it.'
Now it was her hand which was cognisant of the letter, her fingers sensitively perceiving the rich, heavy texture of the paper, her eyes observing the thin, copperplate inscription of her own name which ran accurately across the centre of its white surface. How long she regarded her name she did not know, but when she looked up Dan had gone, without her having thanked him or even spoken to him, and, as she glanced along the vacant roadway, she felt a vague regret at her lack of courtesy, considered that she must make amends to him in some fashion, perhaps apologise or give him some tobacco for his Christmas box. But first she must open this that he had given her.
She turned, closing the door behind her, and, realising that she need not return to that dismal parlour which she hated so much, traversed the hall without a sound and entered the empty kitchen. There she immediately rid her hand of the letter by placing it upon the table. Then she returned to the door by which she had just entered, satisfied herself that it was firmly shut, advanced to the scullery door, which she inspected in like fashion, and finally, as though at last convinced of her perfect seclusion, came back and seated herself at the table. Everything was as she desired it, everything had befallen as she had so cleverly foreseen, and now, alone, unobserved, concealed, with nothing more to do, nothing for which to wait, she was free to open the letter.
Her eye fell upon it again, not fixedly as when she had received it, but with a growing, flickering agitation. Her lips suddenly felt stiff, her mouth dried up and she shook violently from head to foot. She perceived not the long, white oblong of the letter but her own form, bent eternally over a book, at school, at home, in the examination hall of the University, and always overcast by the massive figure of her father, which lay above and upon her like a perpetual shadow. The letter seemed to mirror her own face which looked up, movingly, telling her that all she had worked for, all she had been constrained to work for, the whole object of her life, lay there upon the table, crystallised in a few written words upon one hidden sheet of paper.
Her name was upon the envelope and the same name must be upon that hidden sheet within, or else everything that she had done, her very life itself, would be futile. She knew that her name was inside, the single name that was always sent without mention of the failures, the name of the winner of the Latta, and yet she was afraid to view it.
That, clearly, was ridiculous! She need not be afraid of her name which, as her father rightly insisted, was a splendid name, a noble name, and one of which she might justly be proud. She was Nessie Brodie she was the winner of the Latta! It had all been arranged months beforehand, everything had been settled between her father and herself. My! But she was the clever, wee thing the smartest lass in Levenford the first girl to win the Bursary a credit to the name of Brodie! As in a dream, her hand stole towards the letter. How curious that her fingers should tremble in this strange fashion as, under her own eyes, they opened the stiff envelope. How thin her fingers were! She had not willed them to open the letter and yet they had done so; even now they held the inner sheet in -their faintly trembling clasp.
Well ! She must see her name the name of Nessie Brodie. That, surely, was no hardship to view for one moment her own name. That moment had come!
With a heart that beat suddenly with a frantic, unendurable agitation, she unfolded the sheet and looked at it.
The name which met her shrinking gaze was not hers, it was the name of Grierson. John Grierson had won the Latta!
For a second she regarded the paper without comprehension; then her eyes filled with a growing horror which widened her pupils until the words before her blurred together, then faded from her view. She sat motionless, rigid, scarcely breathing, the paper still within her grasp, and into her ears flowed a torrent of words uttered in her father's snarling voice. She was alone in the room, he at the office a mile away yet in her tortured imagination she heard him, saw him
