They went to see Hamilton’s new playhouse on Queen Street. The summer season still had two weeks to run and in the foyer, in a gloom of unilluminated plush and dull gilt cherubs, Lacroix read out the playbill, a Caledonian adaption of Don Quixote, with Mr. Hamish Brewse as the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance and Mrs. Adelaide McMartin as Sancho Panza. It sounded charming and foolish, and they pretended to each other that they might go and see it. Not tonight, of course, or tomorrow night or the next, but before the end of the run. “We could take a box,” said Lacroix. “Cornelius and Jane could join us.”

“And Ranald,” she said.

He nodded. He thought they both might feel the comfort of Ranald’s presence.

On Queen Street again they walked up to the square, counted the sheep grazing in the middle—big, black-faced Cheviots—then came down Miller Street and along the Trongate to the coffee house. Here, in an oval room—a space the members paid twenty-five shillings a year for but which strangers, for a limited period, were permitted to enjoy free of charge—they sat near the doors at one of the few tables still unoccupied. It took ten minutes to catch the waiter’s eye and it was another ten before he stood beside them. They ordered coffee and hot chocolate and a bowl of sweet cream. Over a wooden rail along the wall newspapers hung like laundry. Lacroix asked Emily if she would object to his fetching a couple, seeing what the larger world had been up to without them. She did not object. She asked if he would read to her what was of interest. He said he would, gladly. He went and came back with a Glasgow paper and a copy of The Times. He started with the local paper, shook it out, smoothed it.

“They have built a new lighthouse,” he said.

“In Glasgow?”

“No, no. Somewhere off the east coast. They say you’ll be able to see its light from thirty-five miles away.”