had to pay for the dignity of living in Edinburgh; which indeed gave it
its dignity, since to survive anything so horrible proved one good rough
stuff fit to govern the rest of the world. But chiefly it evoked
desolation. For she knew none of these people. In all the town there was
nobody but her mother who was at all aware of her. It was six months
since she left John Thompson's Ladies' College in John Square, so by
this time the teachers would barely remember that she had been strong in
Latin and mathematics but weak in French, and they were the only adult
people who had ever heard her name. She wanted to be tremendously known
as strong in everything by personalities more glittering than these.
Less than that would do: just to see people's faces doing something else
than express resentment at the east wind, to hear them say something
else than "Twopence" to the tram-conductor. Perhaps if one once got
people going there might happen an adventure which, even if one had no
part in it, would be a spectacle. It was seventeen years since she had
first taken up her seat in the world's hall (and it was none too
comfortable a seat), but there was still no sign of the concert
beginning.

"Yet, Lord, I've a lot to be thankful for!" breathed Ellen. She had this
rich consciousness of her surroundings, a fortuitous possession, a mere
congenital peculiarity like her red hair or her white skin, which did
the girl no credit. It kept her happy even now, when from time to time
she had to lick up a tear with the point of her tongue, on the thin joy
of the twilight.

Really the world was very beautiful. She fell to thinking of those
Saturdays that she and her mother, in the days when she was still at
school, had spent on the Firth of Forth. Very often, after Mrs. Melville
had done her shopping and Ellen had made the beds, they packed a basket