Gladys shivered, and heavy tears gathered in her eyes as she rose from her chair.

'Never mind that. It will be my concern—that is, if you are willing to trust me?'

Teen rose also, and for a moment their eyes met in a steady look. 'Yes,' she said, 'I trust ye, though I dinna, for the life o' me, ken what ye mean.'

There was no demonstration of gratitude on the part of the little seamstress; Gladys even felt a trifle chilled and disheartened thinking of her after she had left the house. But the gratitude was there. That still, cold, self-constrained heart, being awakened to life, never slept again. Both lived to bless that bleak November day when the first compact had been made between them.

From the city Gladys went by car to Kelvinside, and walked up to Bellairs Crescent. Habit is very strong; not yet could the girl, so long used to the strictest and most meagre economies, bear to indulge herself in small luxuries. The need of the world was always with her. She thought always of the many to whom such small sums meant riches. She was not expected at Bellairs Crescent, and she found her friends entertaining at afternoon tea. Some one was singing when she reached the drawing-room door, and when the song was over, she slipped in, surprised, and a little taken aback, to see so many people in the room. A number of them were known to her; there had been many pleasant gatherings at Troon in the summer, and, as was natural, Miss Graham of Bourhill, with her interesting personality and her romantic history, had received a great deal of attention from the Fordyces' large circle of friends. The warmth of the greeting accorded to her made the lovely colour flush high in her cheek, and her eyes sparkle with added brilliance.

'Yes, I came up only at noon. I have been in the city since then,' she replied, in answer to many questions. 'Oh, how do you do, Mr. Fordyce? I did not expect to see you.'

'Nor I you,' said George Fordyce impressively. 'I was dragged here by Julia against my will, and this is the reward of fraternal virtue.'

It was a daring speech, and the manner conveyed still more than the words. The colour broke again over her face in a wavering flood, and her eyes down-dropped under his ardent gaze. These things were noted by several present, and conclusions rapidly drawn.

'You must not talk nonsense to me,' she said, recovering herself, and speaking with her quaint, delightful dignity. 'Remember your promise at Paris.'

'What promise? Did I make one?'

'You know you did,' she said reproachfully. 'We agreed to be friendly, and between friends there should never be any foolish compliments.'

'Well, I can't keep faith; it's impossible to see you and remember any such promise. Besides, it's sober truth,' he replied, growing bolder still. 'Let me get you some tea. Isn't it rather lively here? Doesn't it make you regret having buried yourself in the backwoods at the very beginning of the season?'

'No; I don't care anything about the season,' replied Gladys truthfully. 'Yes, you may bring me some tea, if you don't stay talking after you have brought it. How beautiful Clara is looking to-day.'

'Clara—yes; she's a handsome girl,' said George, regarding his cousin with but a languid approval. She looked very handsome and stately in her trained gown of brown velvet, with a touch of yellow at the throat, but her expression was less bright than usual. The two who spoke of her at the moment did not guess that they were responsible for the sudden change from gay to grave in her demeanour.

'Oh, Gladys, we were coming down on Saturday, Len and I,' whispered Mina at her elbow; 'but now you will stay, and that will do as well. How are you supporting life down there just now? and how is that sweet little oddity, Miss Caroline Peck?'

'If you call her an oddity, Mina, I cannot talk to you,' said Gladys, with a laugh and a shake of the head. 'I am going home to-morrow. Could Leonard and you not go down with me?'

'Going home to-morrow! Not if we know it. The people are just going away, and we shall have a delightful cosy chat. Here's that tiresome George; but isn't he looking handsome? Really, one is proud to have such a cousin.'

It was now half-past five, and the company began to disperse. In about ten minutes there were no guests left but Gladys and the two cousins from Pollokshields.

'Now I can talk to you, my dear child,' said Mrs. Fordyce. 'Why didn't you let us know you were coming to town, and one of the girls, at least, would have come to meet you?'

'I had something to do in the city, dear Mrs. Fordyce,' replied Gladys. 'There is something troubling me a good deal just now.'

'What is it? Nothing must be allowed to trouble Miss Graham of Bourhill. Her star should always be in the ascendant,' said Mina banteringly.

'It is a mystery—a lost girl,' said Gladys rather gravely. 'Some one I knew in the old life, who has disappeared, and nobody knows where she has gone.'

'How exciting! Has she not gone "ower the border an' awa', wi' Jock o' Hazeldean"?' asked Mina. 'Do tell us about her. What is her name?'

'Lizzie Hepburn; she is the sister of Walter, who was with my uncle,' said Gladys gravely. 'It is the strangest thing.'

'George, my dear, look what you are doing. Oh, my beautiful gown!'

It was Mrs. Fordyce who thus turned the conversation. Her nephew, handing the cup of tea she had never found time to drink while her guests were present, had deliberately spilled it on the front of her tea-gown. The incident was laughed over in the end, and the only person present who thought of associating his awkwardness with the name Gladys had mentioned was Mina, the shrewdest of them all; but though she had many a strange and anxious thought on the subject, she held her peace.



CHAPTER XXIII.

REAL AND IDEAL.

The little seamstress had never been out of Glasgow in her life. Even the Fair holidays, signal for an almost universal exodus 'doon the water,' brought no emancipation for her. It may be imagined that such a sudden and unexpected invitation to the country filled her with the liveliest anticipation. By eight o'clock that night she had finished her pile of work, and immediately made haste with it to the warehouse which employed her. When she had received her meagre payment, and had another bundle rather contemptuously pushed towards her by the hard-visaged forewoman, she experienced quite a little thrill of pride in refusing it.

'No, thank you, Mrs. Galbraith; I dinna need ony mair the day,' she said, and her face flushed under the forewoman's strong, steady stare.

'Oh, what's up?'

'I'm gaun into the country to visit a lady,' said Teen proudly.

'Oh, all right; there's a hundred waiting on the job, but don't expect to be taken on the moment you like to show your face. We can afford to be as independent as you.'

'I don't expect to need it,' said Teen promptly, though in truth her heart sank a little as she heard these words of doom.

If Gladys failed her, she knew of no other place in that great and evil city where she could earn her bread. She even felt a trifle despondent as she retraced her steps to her garret, but, trying to throw it off, she set herself immediately on entering the house to inspect her wardrobe. This was a most interesting occupation, and, after much deliberation, she took her best black skirt to pieces, and proceeded to hang it as nearly as possible in the latest fashion. Then she had her hat to retrim, and a piece of clean lace to sew on her neckband. At four o'clock her last candle expired in its socket, and she had to go to bed. At the grey dawn she was astir again, and long before the brougham had left Bellairs Crescent with Gladys, Teen was waiting, tin box in hand, on the platform of St. Enoch's Station.

Mrs. Fordyce accompanied Gladys to the station, and when Teen saw them she felt a wild desire to run away. Gladys Graham sitting on a chair in the little attic, talking familiarly of the Hepburns, and Gladys Graham outside, were two very different beings. Gladys glanced sharply round, and, espying her, smiled reassuringly, and advanced with frank outstretched hand.

'Ah, there you are! I am glad to see you. Mrs. Fordyce, this is Teen—Christina Balfour. I must begin to call you Christina; I think it is much prettier. Isn't this a pleasant day? The country will be looking lovely.'

Mrs. Fordyce smiled and bowed graciously to the seamstress, but did not offer her hand. Her manner was kind, but distant; her very smile measured the gulf between them. Teen felt it just as plainly as if she had spoken it in words, and felt also intuitively that her presence there was not quite approved of by the lawyer's wife. That, indeed, was true. There had been a long and rather warm discussion over the little seamstress that morning in Bellairs Crescent, and Mrs. Fordyce had discovered that, with all her gentleness and simplicity, Gladys was not a person to abandon a project on which she had set her heart.

'My dear Gladys,' she took the opportunity of whispering when Teen was out of hearing, 'I am more than ever perplexed. She is not even interesting—nothing could be more hopelessly vulgar and commonplace.'

Gladys never spoke.

'Do tell me what you mean to do with her,' she pursued, with distinct anxiety in her manner.

'Don't let us speak about it, Mrs. Fordyce,' said Gladys rather coldly. 'It is impossible you can understand. I have been like her; I know what her life is. You must let me alone.'

'I am afraid you are going to be eccentric, my dear,' said Mrs. Fordyce. 'I cannot help regretting that Madame Bonnemain was prevented coming to Bourhill. She would have set her foot down on this.'

'Then she would have been mistress of Bourhill,' answered Gladys, with a faint smile, 'and we should certainly have disagreed.'

Mrs. Fordyce looked at her curiously.

'There is a great deal of character about you, Gladys. I am afraid you are rather an imposition. To look at you, one would think you as gentle as a lamb.'

'Dear Mrs. Fordyce, don't make me out such a terrible person,' said Gladys quickly. 'Is it so odd that I should wish to brighten life a little for those whom I know have had so very little brightness?'

'No; it is not your aim, only your method, I object to, my dear. It will never do to fill Bourhill with such people. But I will say no more. Experience will teach you expediency and discretion.'

'We shall see,' replied Gladys, with a laugh, and for the first time she experienced a sense of relief at parting with her kind friend.

Mrs. Fordyce was a kind-hearted woman, and did a great many good deeds, though on strictly conventional lines. She was the clever organiser of Church charities, the capable head of the Ladies' Provident and Dorcas Society, to which she grudged neither time nor money; but she did not believe in personal contact with the very poor, nor in the power or efficacy of individual sympathy and effort. She thought a great deal about Gladys that day, pondering and puzzling over her action—a trifle nettled, if it must be told, at the calm, quiet manner in which her disapproval had been ignored. Gladys was indeed proving herself a very capable and independent mistress of Bourhill.

Meanwhile the two girls, whom fortune had so differently favoured, journeyed together into Ayrshire. A strange shyness seemed to have taken possession of Teen; she sat bolt upright in the corner of the carriage, clutching her tin box, and looking half-scared, half-defiant; even the red feather in her hat seemed to wear an aggressive air. In her soul she fervently rued the step she had taken, and thought with longing of her own little room, and with affectionate regret of the bundle she had so proudly returned to Mrs. Galbraith.

'What are you thinking of, Teen? You don't look at all happy,' said Gladys, growing a trifle embarrassed by the continued silence.

'I'm no'; I wish I hadna come,' was the flat reply, which made the sensitive colour rise in the fair cheek of Gladys.

'Oh no, you don't; you are only shy. Wait till you have seen Bourhill; you will think it the loveliest place in the world,' she said cheerfully.

'Maybe,' answered Teen doubtfully. 'I feel gey queer the noo, onyhoo.'

This was not encouraging. Gladys became silent also, and both felt relieved when the train stopped at Mauchline Station.

The girl, whose only idea of the country was her acquaintance with the straight, conventional arrangement of city parks and gardens, looked about her with genuine wonder.

'My,' she said, as they crossed over the little footbridge at the station, 'sic a room folk have here! Are there nae hooses ava?'

'Oh, lots,' replied Gladys quite gaily, relieved to see even a faint interest exhibited by her guest. 'We shall drive through Mauchline presently; it is such a pretty, quaint little town.'

A very dainty little phaeton, in charge of an exceedingly smart young groom, waited at the station gate for Miss Graham. Teen regarded it and her with open-mouthed amazement. Again it seemed impossible that this gracious, self-possessed lady, giving her orders so calmly, and according so well in every respect with her changed fortunes, could be the same girl who accompanied Liz and herself to the Ariel Music Hall not much more than a year ago.

'My,' she said again, when Gladys took the reins and the pony started off, 'it's grand, but queer.'

'It is all very nice, I think,' said Gladys whimsically. 'Did I tell you that Mrs. Macintyre, who used to live in the Wynd, is at the lodge at Bourhill? But perhaps you did not know Mrs. Macintyre?'

'I have heard o' her frae Liz,' Teen replied; 'but I didna ken that she was here.'

'She only came a month ago. She is a great treasure to me. I wonder if you have thought why I wished you to come here?'

'I've wondered. Ye can tell me, if ye like,' said Teen.

'Well, you see, I have always been sorry about you, somehow, ever since that day I saw you in the Hepburns' house; I really never forgot your pale face. I want you here for your own sake, first, to try and make you look brighter and healthier, and I want your advice and help about something I am more interested in than anything.'

'My advice an' help!' repeated Teen almost blankly, yet secretly flattered and pleased. The idea that her advice and help should be desired by any one was something so entirely new that she may be excused being almost overcome by it.

'Yes,' answered Gladys, with a nod. 'It's about the girls—the girls you and I know about in Glasgow, who have such a poor time, and are surrounded with so much temptation. Do you remember that night long ago when Lizzie Hepburn and you took me to the Ariel Music Hall?'

'Yes, I mind it fine. I was thinkin' o't no' a meenit syne.'

'Well, don't you think that the girls we saw there might have some place a little pleasanter and safer for them to be in than a music hall?'

'Yes,' answered Teen, with unwonted seriousness. 'It's no' a guid place. I've kent twa-three that gaed to the bad, an' they met their bad company there. But what can lassies dae? Tak' Liz, for instance, or me. Had we onything to keep us at hame? The streets, or the music hall, or the dancin', ony o' them was better than sittin' in the hoose.'

'Oh, I know. Have I not thought of it all?' cried Gladys, with a great mournfulness. 'But don't you think if they had some pleasant place of their own, where they could meet together of an evening, and read or work or amuse themselves, they would be happier?'

'There are some places. I ken some lassies that belang to Christian Associations. Liz an' me gaed twice or thrice wi' some o' the members, but'—

'But what?' asked Gladys, bending forward with keen interest.

'We didna like it. There was ower muckle preachin', and some of the ladies looked at us as if we were dirt,' responded Teen candidly. 'Ye should hae heard Liz when we cam' oot. It was as guid as a play to hear her imitatin' them.'

Gladys looked thoughtful, and a trifle distressed. Curiously, at the moment she could not help thinking of the many societies and associations with which Mrs. Fordyce was connected, and of her demeanour that day at St. Enoch's Station—an exact exemplification of Teen's plain-spoken objection.

'Liz said she was as guid as them, an' she wadna be patronised; an' that's what prevents plenty mair frae gaun. A lot gang just to serve themselves, because they get a lot frae the ladies. My, ye can get onything oot o' them if ye ken hoo to work them.'

This was a very gross view of the case, which could not but jar upon Gladys, though she was conscious that there was a good deal of truth in it. Somehow, in the light of Teen Balfour's unvarnished estimate of philanthropic endeavour, her dreams seemed to become all at once impossible of fulfilment.

'I do not think they mean, the ladies, to patronise. Do you not think the girls imagine, or at least exaggerate?'

'Maybe; but Susan Greenlees—a lassie I ken, that works in a print-mill—telt me one o' them reproved her for haein' a long white ostrich feather in her hat, and Susan, she just says, "Naebody askit you to pay for it," an' left.'

Gladys relapsed into silence; and Teen, all unconscious of the cold water she had thrown so copiously on a bright enthusiasm, sat back leisurely, and looked about her interestedly.

'Here we are,' said Gladys, at length rousing herself up, though with an evident effort; 'and there is Mrs. Macintyre at the gate. You have never seen her, you say? Hasn't she a nice kind face?'

Gladys drew rein when they had passed through the gate, and introduced the two. Mrs. Macintyre, who looked like a different being in her warm grey tweed gown, neat cap, and black apron, gave the pale city girl a hearty hand-shake, and prophesied that Bourhill air would soon bring a rose into her cheek. Gladys nodded, and said she hoped so, then drove on to the house. And when they went up the long flight of steps and into the wide, warm, beautiful hall, Teen's shyness returned to her, and if it had been possible she would have turned and fled.



CHAPTER XXIV.

THE UNEXPECTED.

It did not occur to Gladys to give her guest quarters at the lodge beside Mrs. Macintyre, where, it might have been thought, she would be more at home. Having invited her to Bourhill, she treated her in all respects like any other guest. Teen, after the first fit of shyness wore off, accepted it all as a matter of course, and conducted herself in a calm and undisturbed manner, which secretly astonished Gladys. All the while, however, her new surroundings and experiences made a profound impression on the awakened mind of the city girl. Nothing escaped the keen vision of her great dark eyes. Every detail of the beautiful old house was photographed on her memory; she could have told how many chairs were in the drawing-room, and described every picture on the dining-room walls. Between her and little Miss Peck—the brisk, happy-hearted spinster, who appeared to have taken a new lease of life—there was speedily established a very good understanding, which was also a source of amazement to Gladys. She had anticipated exactly the reverse.

'My dear, she is most interesting,' said Miss Peck, when the first evening was over, and Teen had gone to bed, not to sleep, but to lie enjoying the luxury of a down-bed and dainty linen, and pondering on this wonderful thing that had happened to her,—'most interesting. What depths in her eyes—what self-possession in her demeanour! My dear, you can make anything of that girl.'

Miss Peck was given to romancing and enthusiasm, but the contrast between her opinion and that expressed by Mrs. Fordyce made Gladys smile. She did not feel herself as yet very particularly drawn towards her guest, whose reserve of manner was sometimes as trying as her outspokenness on other occasions.

'I am glad you like her, Miss Peck. I confess that sometimes I do not know what to make of her. But, you see, she is the only one who can be of any use to me; she knows all about working girls and their ways. If only I could find poor Lizzie Hepburn! She always knew exactly what she meant, and she was clever enough for anything,' said Gladys, with a sigh.

'But tell me, my dear, what is it you wish to do? I don't know that I quite comprehend.'

'Indeed, I am not quite clear about it yet myself, though, of course, I have an idea I want to help them, especially the friendless ones. If it could be arranged, I should like to establish a kind of friendly Club for them in Glasgow, where they could all meet, and where those who have no friends could lodge; then I should like to have a little holiday house for them here, if possible.'

'My dear, that is a great undertaking for one so young.'

'Do you think so? I must try it, and you must help me, dear Miss Peck, for Mrs. Fordyce won't. She doesn't approve at all of my having invited Christina Balfour down here.'

'My dear, the world never does approve of anything done out of the conventional way,' said Miss Peck, with a quiet touch of bitterness. 'I think you have a very noble aim, and the heart of an angel; only there will be mountains of difficulty in the way.'

'We must overcome them,' answered Gladys quickly.

'And you will meet with much discouragement, and a great deal of ingratitude,' pursued the little spinster, hating herself for her discouraging words, but convinced that it was her duty to prepare her dear charge for the worst.

'Not more than I can bear,' Gladys answered. 'And I am quite sure that, with all these drawbacks, I shall also receive many bright, encouraging things to help me on.'

'Yes, my dear, you will. God will reward you in His own best way,' said Miss Peck, with tears in her eyes.

Gladys sat late by the fire that night, pondering her new scheme, and developing its details with great rapidity. She found the greatest comfort and pleasure in such planning; for, though she was the envied of many, there were times, though unconfessed, when she was weighed down by her own loneliness, when a sense of desolation, as keen as any she had ever experienced in Colquhoun Street, made all the lovelier things of life seem of no account.

Next morning Gladys drove her guest into Troon, and at sight of the great sea, its breast troubled with wintry storms, tossing and rolling in wildest unrest, Teen appeared for the first time really moved.

'It's fearsome,' she said in an awe-stricken whisper,—'fearsome! Michty me, look at the waves! It's fearsome to look at.'

'How odd that it should strike you so!' exclaimed Gladys. 'It always rests and soothes me; the wilder it is, the deeper the quiet it infuses into my soul. See the tall shadow yonder through the mists, the mountains of Arran; and that is Ayr, across Prestwick Bay; and these rocks jutting out into the sea, the Heads of Ayr. Do you see that house with the flagstaff, at the top of the Links? It is Mr. Fordyce's house, The Anchorage, where I lived all summer. It is splendid here to-day. Stand still, Firefly, you impatient animal; we are not ready to go yet.'

'I wad be feared to live in that hoose,' said Teen. 'The waves micht come up in the nicht an' wash it away. Jist look at that yin the noo.'

A great green wave, with its angry crest of foam, came rolling in with apparently resistless force, and spent itself on the pebbly shore with a sullen roar.

'"Thus far shalt thou come, and no farther,"' said Gladys, with a faint smile, and a momentary uplifting of her eyes to the grey wintry sky. '"He holdeth the sea in the hollow of His hand."'

'Some day, when it is very fine, I shall take you to Ayr,' said Gladys, as she turned the pony's head. 'I have often thought how I should like to bring Liz here. I cannot tell you how I feel about her; I think about her almost continually.'

'So dae I, though I think, mind, she's been very shabby to me; but she was my chum,' said Teen, with an unusually soft look on her face. 'She didna care a button what she said to a body, but at the same she wad dae onything for ye.'

'And you still think she is in London?'

'Yes,' answered Teen, without a moment's hesitation 'Learnin' to be an actress, as sure as I sit here.'

'Somehow I don't think it. I have an odd feeling at times about her, as if she were not so far away from us as we imagine.'

'She's no' in Glesca, onyway. She couldna be in Glesca withoot me kennin',' replied Teen confidently. 'There's some that think she gaed aff wi' a beau, but they never said it twice to me. I kent Liz better than that. She could watch hersel'.'

'Did you know him, the man you call her beau?' inquired Gladys, with a slight blush.

'Ay, I kent him,' said Teen, looking away over the landscape as if she suddenly found it of new and absorbing interest.

'And have you seen him since?'

'Ay.'

'Did you speak to him, or ask him if he knew anything about her?'

'No' me; it's nane o' my business to meddle; but maybe I wad ask him if I had a chance,' said Teen, with a peculiar pressure of the lips.

'Who is he, Teen? Do you know his name?'

'Ay, fine that; but it wad dae nae guid to say,' replied Teen guardedly. 'I dinna think he had onything to dae wi' her gaun away, onyway.'

Gladys perceived that Teen was determined to be utterly loyal to her friend, and admired her for it.

That very afternoon, however, Teen saw occasion to change her mind on the subject. After lunch, while Gladys was busy with letter-writing, Teen went out to pay a visit to Mrs. Macintyre at the lodge. She was walking very leisurely down the avenue, admiring the brilliant glossy green of the laurels and hollies, when the tall figure of a man in a long ulster came swinging round the curve which hid the gates from view. Teen gave a great start, and the dusky colour leaped in her face when she recognised him. His cheek flushed too with distinct annoyance, and surprise was also visible on his face.

'What are you doing here?' he asked, without the shadow of other greeting.

Teen looked up at him with a kind of quiet insolence in her heavy dark eyes.

'That's my business,' she said calmly, and picked to pieces the leaf she had in her hand.

'Are you staying here?' he asked then, with undisguised uneasiness, which secretly delighted Teen. If there was a human being she mortally disliked and distrusted, it was Mr. George Fordyce.

'Yes, I'm stayin' at the big hoose.'

'With Miss Graham?'

Teen nodded, and a faint, melancholy smile, half of scorn, half of amusement, touched her thin lips.

'How the deuce did you manage that?' he inquired angrily. 'I can't understand it.'

'Nor I; ye can ask her, if ye like,' responded Teen calmly; then quite suddenly she dropped her mask of indifference, and, laying her thin, worn fingers on his arm, lifted her penetrating eyes swiftly to his uneasy face. 'I say, where's Liz?'

'How should I know? How dare you question me?' he asked passionately. 'I shall warn Miss Graham against you, that you are not a proper person to have in her house. You are not fit to breathe the same air with her.'

'Maybe no'; but as fit as you,' she answered scornfully. 'I see through it a'; but if ye have harmed Liz, my gentleman, ye'll no' get off wi' it. Ye'll answer for it to me.'

Mrs. Fordyce had called her vulgar and commonplace; she did not look so now; passion transformed her into a noble creature. The man of the world, accustomed to its homage and adulation, cowed before the little seamstress of the slums. While she walked away from him, as if scorning to bandy further words, he looked after her in consternation. She had not only surprised, she had made a coward of him for the moment. He seemed to see in the slight, insignificant form of the city girl the Nemesis who would sooner or later bring his evil deeds home, and thwart what was at the present moment the highest ambition of his life.

His step lagged as he continued his way towards the house, within whose walls dwelt the woman whom love and ambition prompted him to make his wife. It was not, however, the reluctance of a dishonoured soul to seek communion with one so absolutely pure, it was merely the hesitation of a prudence wholly selfish. He rapidly reviewed the situation, considered every possibility and every likely issue, and took his resolve. He could not afford to wait. If Gladys was ever to be his, she must be won at once. If she cared sufficiently for him to pledge herself to him, he believed that she would stand by him and take his word, whatever slander might assail his name. He had not anticipated this crisis when, in a careless, idle mood, he had left the mill, and followed the impulse which sent him to Bourhill.

By the time he reached the steps before the door every trace of disturbance had vanished, and he was once more the urbane, handsome, debonair gentleman who played such havoc among women's hearts.

Miss Graham being at home, he was at once shown into the drawing-room, and left there while the maid took his name to her mistress. Meanwhile Teen, instead of going into the lodge, passed through the gates, and walked away up the road. She was utterly alone, the only sign of life being a flock of sheep in the distance, trotting on sedately before a tall shepherd and a collie dog. Teen never saw them. She was fearfully excited, believing that she had at last discovered the clue to her missing friend.



CHAPTER XXV.

THE FIRST WOOER.

Gladys was writing a long letter to her guardian, setting forth in eloquent terms what she wished to do for the working girls of the East End, and asking him for some sympathy and advice, when the housemaid knocked at the door.

'A gentleman for me, Ellen? Yes, I shall be there presently,' she said, without looking at the card on the salver. 'Is Miss Peck in the drawing-room?'

'No, ma'am; she is taking her rest. Shall I tell her?'

'Oh no. Who is it?'

She added another word to her letter, and then read the name on the card. The maid standing by could not help seeing the lovely access of colour in the fair cheek of her mistress, and, as was natural, drew her own conclusions.

Gladys rose at once, and proceeded up-stairs. She did not, as almost every other woman in the circumstances would have done, go to her own room to inspect her appearance or make any change in her toilet. And, in truth, none was needed. Her plain black serge gown, with its little ruffle at the neck, which would have made a dowdy of almost anybody but herself, was at once a fitting and becoming robe. Her lovely hair, which in the early days had hung in straight heavy plaits over her back, was now wound about her head, and kept in place by a band and knot of black velvet. She moved with the calm mien and serious grace of a woman at ease with herself and all the world. A faint hesitation, however, visited her when she stood without the closed door of the drawing-room. That curious prevision, which most of us experience at times, that something unusual was in store, robbed her for a moment of her usual self-possession; but, smiling and inwardly chiding herself for her own folly, she opened the door and entered the presence of her lover. She knew him to be such, it was impossible to mistake his demeanour and his attitude towards her. There was the most lover-like eagerness in his look and step as he came towards her, and under his gaze the girl's sweet eyes drooped and her colour deepened.

'This is quite a surprise,' she said gaily. 'Why did you not bring some of the girls with you?'

'I haven't seen them for ages, and Julia has a dance on to-night for which she is saving herself. Besides, perhaps, I wanted to come quite alone.'

'Yes?' she said in a voice faintly interrogatory. 'And you had to walk from the station, too? If you had only wired in the morning, I could have come or sent for you.'

'But, you see, I did not know in the morning I should be here to-day. It is often the unexpected that happens. I came off on the impulse of the moment. Are you glad to see me?'

It was a very direct question; but Gladys had now quite recovered herself, and met it with a calm smile.

'Why, of course; how could I be otherwise? But, I say, you said a moment ago you had not seen any of the girls for ages; it is only forty-eight hours since we met in your aunt's drawing-room.'

'So it is,' he said innocently. 'I had quite forgotten, which shows how time goes with me when you are out of town. Are you really going to bury yourself here all winter?'

'I am going to live here, of course. It is my home, and I don't want any other. A day in Glasgow once a week is quite enough for me.'

'Hard lines for Glasgow,' he said, tugging his moustache, and looking at her with a good deal of real sentiment in his handsome eyes. She was looking so sweet, he felt himself more in love than ever; and there was a certain 'stand-offishness' in her manner which attracted him as much as anything. He had not hitherto found such indifference a quality among the young ladies of his acquaintance.

'I have just been writing to your Uncle Tom, telling him I want to spend a great deal of money,' she began, rather to divert the conversation than from any pressing desire for his opinion, 'and I don't feel at all sure about what he will say. Your aunt does not approve, I know.'

'May I ask how you are going to spend it?' he inquired, with interest.

'Oh yes. I want to institute a Club for working girls in Glasgow, and a holiday house for them here.'

'But there are any amount of such things in Glasgow already, and I question if they do any good. I know my mother and Ju are always down on them, and there's truth in what they say, too, that we are making a god out of the working class. It is quite sickening what is done for them, and how ungrateful they are.'

Gladys winced a little, and he perceived that he had spoken rather strongly.

'I know there is a good deal done, but I think sometimes the methods are not quite wise,' she said quietly. 'I am going to run my Club, as the Americans say, on my own lines. You see, I am rather different, for I have been a poor working girl myself, and I know both what they need and what will do them most good.'

'You seem rather proud of the distinction,' he said involuntarily. 'Most women in your position would have made a point of ignoring the past. That is what half of Glasgow is trying to do all the time—forget where they sprang from. Why are you so different?'

'I do not know.' Her lips curled in a fine scorn. 'As if it mattered,' she said half-contemptuously,—'as if it mattered what anybody had sprung from. I was reading Burns this morning, and I felt as if I could worship him if for nothing more than writing these lines—

"The rank is but the guinea stamp, The man's the gowd for a' that."'

'That's all very good in theory,' he said a trifle lazily; 'and besides, it is very easy for you to speak like that, with centuries of lineage behind you. I suppose the Grahams are as old as the Eglintons, or the Alexanders, or even the great Portland family itself, if you come to inquire into it. Yes, it is very easy for you to despise rank.'

'I don't despise it, and I am very proud in my own way that I do belong to such an old family; but, all the same, it doesn't really matter. There is nothing of any real value except honour and high character, and, of course, genius.'

'When you speak like that, Gladys, and look like that, upon my word, you make a fellow afraid to open his mouth before you,' he said quickly, and there was something very winning in the humility and deference with which he uttered these words.

Gladys was not unmoved by them, and had he followed up his slight advantage, he might have won her on the spot; but at the propitious moment Ellen brought in the tea-tray, and the conversation had to drift into a more general groove.

'To return to my project,' said Gladys, when the maid had gone again, 'I have one of my old acquaintances among the working girls here just now. I expect she will help me a good deal. She was the friend of poor Lizzie Hepburn, whom we have lost so completely. Is it not strange? What do you think can have become of her?'

'I'm sure I couldn't say,' he replied, with all the indifference at his command.

Gladys, busy with the tea-cups, noticed nothing strange in his manner, nor did his answer disappoint her much. She was quite aware that he did not take an absorbing interest in the questions which engrossed so much of her own thought.

'The saddest thing about it is that nobody seems to care anything about what has become of her,' she said, as she took the dainty Wedgewood teapot in her hand. 'Just think if the same thing had happened to your sister or either of your cousins, what a thing it would have been.'

'My dear Gladys, the cases are not parallel. Such things happen every day, and nobody pays the least attention. And besides, such people do not have the same feelings as us.'

Gladys looked at him indignantly.

'You only say so because you know nothing about them,' she said quickly. 'I do assure you the poor have quite as keen feelings as the rich, and some things they feel even more, I think. Why, only to-day I had an instance of it in the girl I have staying here. Her loyalty to Liz is quite beautiful. I wish you would not judge so harshly and hastily.'

'I will think anything to please you, Gladys,' said George fervently. 'You must forgive me if I am a trifle sceptical. You see, a fellow has his opinions moulded pretty much by his people, and mine don't take your view of the lower classes.'

Again he was unfortunate in his choice of words. Gladys particularly disliked the expression, 'lower classes,' and his apologetic tone did not appease her.

'They judge them harshly because they know nothing about them, and never will. One has to live among them, as I have done, to learn their good qualities. It is the only way,' she said rather sadly.

George set down his cup on the tray, and lingered at the table, looking down at her with a glance which might have disconcerted her.

'You are so awfully good, Gladys,' he said, quite humbly for him. 'I wonder you can be half as civil as you are to a reprobate like me.'

'Are you a reprobate?' she asked, with a faint, wondering smile.

'I'm not as good as I should be,' he added frankly. 'But, you see, I've never had anybody put things in the light you put them in. If I had, I believe it would have made all the difference. Won't you take me in hand?'

He threw as much significance as he dared into his last question; but Gladys apparently did not catch his meaning.

'I don't like to hear you speak so,' was the unexpected reply. 'It is like throwing the blame on other people. A man ought to be strong enough to be and to do good on his own account.'

'If you tell me what you would like me to do, I'll do it, upon my word,' he said earnestly.

'Oh, I have no right to do that, but since you ask, I will say that you have not very far to seek your opportunities. Your Uncle Tom told me the other day you employed nearly seven hundred men and women at your mills. If that is not a field for you to work in, I don't know what is.'

George Fordyce bit his lip ever so slightly, and half turned away. This was bringing it home indeed, and the vision of himself taking up a new role among his own workpeople rather disconcerted him.

'Now you are offended,' said Gladys quickly; 'and, please, it is not my fault. You asked me what you should do.'

'Offended with you! No such thing. You could never offend me. Can't you see, Gladys, that the very reason I would be better is you, and you alone. I want to please you, because I want to win you.'

There was no doubt at all about his meaning now. The passion with which he spoke brought a blush to the girl's cheek, and she rose hurriedly from her chair.

'Oh, you must not say such things to me, please.'

'Why not? Every man has the right to speak when he loves a woman as I love you. Could not you care for me, Gladys? I know I am not half good, but I'll try to be better for your sake.'

'I have liked you very well. I do like you,' she answered, with a trembling frankness,—'only, I think, not quite in that way.'

'If you like me at all, I shall not despair. It will come in time. Give me the hope that you'll try to think of me in that way,' he pleaded passionately; and Gladys slightly shook her head.

'Try?' she repeated. 'I do not know much, but it seems to me that that should be without trying.'

'But you need not give me a final answer now. Let me wait and try to win you—to be more worthy of you. I know I am not that yet, but you know we've got on awfully well together—been such chums—I'm sure it would all come right.'

He looked very handsome and very winning, pleading his cause with an earnestness which left no doubt of his sincerity. Gladys allowed him to take her hand, and did not draw herself away.

'If you will let me alone a long time—a year, at least—and never speak of it, I will give you an answer then. It is a very serious thing, and one must be quite sure,' she said slowly; and that answer was more than George Fordyce had dared to hope for. There was more deliberation and calmness in her disposal of the question than would have satisfied most men, but he had fared better than he expected, and left the house content.

As for Gladys, she felt restless and unhappy, she did not know why; only she knew that never had her thoughts reverted with such lingering persistence to the past, never had its memories seemed more fraught with sweetness and with pain. She was an enigma, she could not understand herself.



CHAPTER XXVI.

UNDER DISCUSSION.

Teen took quite a long walk along the bleak country road, and on her way back dropped in at the lodge.

Mrs. Macintyre and the redoubtable 'Tammy'—a very round and chubby urchin, as unlike a denizen of the slums as could well be imagined—were sitting at tea by the cosy hearth, and there was a warm welcome and a cup for the visitor at once.

'Come awa', my wummin; I saw ye gang by,' said the good soul cheerily. 'My, but ye hae a fine colour; jist gang ben an' look at yersel' in the room gless. Ye're no' like the same lassie.'

Teen smiled rather incredulously, and did not go 'ben' to verify the compliment.

'It's a fine place this,' she said, as she dropped into a chair. 'A body's never tired. I wonder onybody bides in the toon when there's sae much room in the country.'

The wideness of the landscape, its solitary freedom, and its quiet, impressed the city girl in no ordinary way. After the crush and struggle of the overcrowded streets, which she had not until now left behind, it was natural she should be so impressed.

'I walkit as far as frae the Trongate to the Briggate, an' I saw naething but twa-three sheep an' a robin red-breist sittin' in the hedge,' she said musingly. 'It's breist was as red as it had been pented. I didna ken ye could see them leevin'?'

'Oh, there's thoosan's o' them,' quoth Tammy enthusiastically. 'In the spring that hedge up the road will be thick wi' nests, filled wi' eggs o' a' kinds.'

'Which ye'll leave alane, my man, or I'll warm ye,' said his aunt, with a warning glance. 'Ay, my wummin, this is a hantle better nor the Trongate or the Briggate o' Glesca. An' what's the young leddy aboot this efternune?'

'Writin' letters, I think. Has she said onything to you, Mrs. Macintyre, aboot makin' a Club for lassies in the toon?'

'Tammy,' said Mrs. Macintyre, 'tak' the wee jug an' rin up to the dairy, an' ask Mrs. Grieve if she'll gie ye a hap'nyworth o' mair cream.'

She did not urgently require the cream, but it was necessary at the moment to get rid of Tammy, who was a remarkably shrewd boy, with very long ears and a wonderful understanding.

Just as Tammy departed, rather unwillingly it must be told, the carriage from the house came bowling down the avenue, and Mrs. Macintyre ran out to open the gate. From her seat by the fire Teen could see over the low white window-blind that George Fordyce sat in it alone.

'There's something up,' said Mrs. Macintyre. 'D'ye see that?'

She held up a shining half-crown, which in his gracious mood the hopeful lover had bestowed upon the gatekeeper.

'I wonder if that's to be the Laird o' Bourhill?' she said meditatively. 'Ye wadna see him as he gaed by?—a very braw man, an' rich, they say—a Fordyce o' Gorbals Mill. Hae ye heard o' them?'

'Ay, often.' Teen's colour seemed to have deepened, but it might be only the fire which glowed upon it. 'Ye dinna mean to say that that micht happen?'

'What for no'?' queried Mrs. Macintyre easily, as she cut a slice from the loaf and held it on a fork before the fire. 'She's bonnie an' she's guid, besides being weel tochered. She'll no' want for wooers. I say, did ye ken Walter Hepburn, that carries on auld Skinny's business noo in Colquhoun Street?'

'Yes, well enough,' answered Teen slowly.

'There was a time when I wad hae said the twa—him an' Miss Gladys, I mean—were made for ane anither, but it's no' noo. He seems to hae forgotten her, an' maybe it's as weel. She maun mak' a braw mairriage, an' Fordyce is a braw fellow. I wish ye had noticed him.'

'Oh, I've seen him afore,' said Teen, with an evident effort, and somehow the conversation did not flow very freely, but was purely a one-sided affair, Teen simply sitting glowering into the fire, with an expression on her face which indicated that she was only partially interested in the gatekeeper's cheery talk. It was rather a relief when Tammy returned with the 'wee jug' full of cream, and his own mind full of the arrival of a new calf, a great event, which had happened at the dairy that very afternoon.

Mrs. Macintyre was, on the whole, disappointed with her guest, and saw her depart after tea without regret. She was altogether too reticent and silent for that garrulous person's liking. She would have been very much astonished had she obtained a glimpse into the girl's mind. Never, indeed, in all her life had Teen Balfour been so troubled and so anxious. Once or twice that evening Gladys caught her looking at her with a glance so penetrating and so anxious that it impressed her with a sort of uneasiness. She did not feel particularly happy herself. Now that her lover had gone, and that the subtle charm of his personality and presence was only a memory, she half regretted what had happened that afternoon. She felt almost as if she had committed herself, and she was surprised that she should secretly chafe over it.

'Teen,' she said quite suddenly, when they were sitting alone at the library fire after supper, when Miss Peck had gone to give her housekeeping orders for the morning, 'had you ever a lover?'

This extraordinary and unexpected question drove the blood into the colourless face of Teen, and she could not for the moment answer.

'Well, yes,' she said at length, with a faint, queer smile. 'Maybe I've had twa-three o' a kind.'

'Two or three?' echoed Gladys in a surprised and rather disapproving voice. 'That is very odd. But, tell me, have you ever seen anybody who wished to marry you, and whom you wished to marry?'

'There was a lad asked me yince,' answered Teen, 'but he was only seventeen—a prentice in Tennant's, wi' aicht shillin's a week. I've never had a richt offer.'

'Then what do you mean by saying you have had two or three lovers?' queried Gladys, in wonder.

'Oh, weel, I've keepit company wi' a lot. They've walkit me oot, an' ta'en me to the balls an' that—that's what I mean.'

Gladys was rather disappointed, perceiving that it was not likely she would get much help from the experience of Teen.

'I think that is rather strange, but perhaps it is quite right, and it is only I who am strange. But, tell me, do you think a girl always can know just at once whether she cares enough for a man to marry him?'

'I dinna ken; there's different kinds o' mairriages,' said Teen philosophically. 'I dinna think there's onything in real life like the love in "Lord Bellew's Bride," unless among the gentry.'

'Do you really think not?' asked Gladys, with a slight wistfulness. 'I have not read "Lord Bellew," of course, but I do believe there is that kind of love which would give up all, and dare and suffer anything. I should not like to marry without it.'

'Dinna, then,' replied Teen quite coolly. Nevertheless, as she looked at the sweet face rendered so grave and earnest by the intensity of her thought, her eye became more and more troubled.

'Among oor kind o' folk there's a' kind o' mairriages,' she began. 'Some lassies mairry thinkin' they'll hae an easier time an' a man to work for them, an' they sometimes fin' oot they've only ta'en somebody to keep; some mairry for spite, an' some because they'd raither dee than be auld maids. I dinna think, mysel', love—if there be sic a thing—has ony thing to do wi't.'

It was rather a cynical doctrine, but Teen implicitly believed what she was saying.

'Are you thinkin' on mairryin'?' she asked then; and, without waiting for an answer, continued in rather a hurried, troubled way, 'I wadna if I were you—at least, for a while. Wait or ye see what turns up. Ye'll never be better than ye are, an' men are jist men. I wadna gie a brass fardin' for the best o' them.'

Gladys did not resent this plain expression of opinion, because she perceived that a genuine kindliness prompted it.

'I am quite sure I shall not marry for a very long time,' Gladys replied; then they fell to talking over the other subject, which was so interesting to them both.

Underneath all her cynical philosophy there was real kindness as well as shrewd common-sense in the little seamstress. She was in some respects one of the best advisers Gladys could possibly have taken into her confidence.

These sweet, restful days were a benediction to the weary, half-starved heart of the city girl, and under their benign influence she became a different creature. Little Miss Peck, who adored Gladys, sometimes observed, with a smile of approval, the grateful, pathetic look in Teen's large solemn eyes when they followed the sweet young creature who had shown her a glimpse of the sunny side of life. It was not a glimpse, however, which Gladys intended to be merely transient. She had in view a scheme which was to be of permanent value to the poor little seamstress.

In the course of that week Gladys had occasion to be over-night in Glasgow, for the purpose of attending a concert with the family in Bellairs Crescent. It was a very select and fashionable affair, at which the elite and beauty of Glasgow were present. Gladys enjoyed the gay and animated scene as much as the music, which was also to her a rare treat. When they left the hall it was nearly eleven o'clock, and they had to wait some time in the vestibule till their carriage should move towards the door. It was a fine mild night, and the girls, with their soft hoods drawn over their heads, and their fleecy wraps close about their throats, stood close by the great doors, chatting merrily while they waited. The usual small crowd of loafers were hanging about the pavements, and as usual Gladys was saddened by the sight of the dejected and oftentimes degraded-looking denizens of the lower quarters of the city. It might be that, in contrast with the gay and handsomely-dressed people from the West End, their poverty seemed even more pitiable.

'Now, Gladys, no such pained expression, if you please,' said the observant Mina. 'Don't look as if you carried all the sins and sorrows of Glasgow on your own shoulders. Good, here is the brougham; and pray observe the expression on the countenance of James. Is it not a picture?'

Gladys could not but laugh, and they tripped across the pavement to the carriage. When they were all in, and Mr. Fordyce had given the word to the coachman, a woman suddenly swerved from the pavement and peered in at the carriage window. At the moment the impatient horses moved swiftly away, and when Gladys begged them to stop it was too late; the woman was lost in the crowd.

Gladys, however, had seen her face, and recognised it, in spite of the change upon it, as the face of Walter's sister Liz.



CHAPTER XXVII.

GLADYS AND WALTER.

The fleeting vision of Liz Hepburn's familiar face appeared to fill Gladys with excitement and unrest. As Mina looked at her flushed cheeks and shining eyes, she felt a vague uneasiness visit her own heart. They did not speak of her as they drove home, but when the girls gathered, as was their wont, round the cheerful fire in the guest-chamber before retiring for the night, Gladys asked them a question.

'Did you see her? She looked very ill, and very distressed. Do you not think so? Oh, I fear she has been in trouble, and I must do all I can to find out about her. If you will allow me, I shall remain another day in town, and I can send a telegram to Miss Peck in the morning.'

Mina, on her knees beside her chair, her plump bare arm showing very white and fair against the black lace of Gladys's gown, looked up at her with a slightly troubled air.

'Gladys, I wish you wouldn't bother about that girl. You lay things far too much to heart. It can't possibly concern you now. Let her own people look after her.'

Gladys received this remark with rather an indignant look.

'Mina, that is not like you. You only assume such hard-heartedness. If you saw her face as I saw it, it must haunt you. Her eyes were quite wild and despairing, I cannot forget them.'

'Oh, I think you exaggerate,' said Mina lightly. 'I saw her very well. It was the usual calm, rather insolent stare these girls give. I do not think she looked either very ill or very desperate, and she seemed comfortably clothed. What do you think, Clara?'

'Oh, I didn't see her,' answered Clara, with a slight yawn. 'Yes, Gladys dear, I do think you worry too much over things. What can that girl possibly be to you? Of course we are very sorry for her; still, if she is in trouble, she has brought it on herself. It will never do for you to mix yourself up with all sorts and conditions. I say, wasn't Sims Reeves heavenly to-night, and "Come into the garden, Maud," more entrancing than ever? To think what immense power that man wields in his voice! He can do with his audience as he likes. He was in splendid form.'

Gladys remained silent. The concert had given her a rare pleasure, but it was obliterated at the moment by the incident of the face at the carriage window.

'We had better get to bed, girls, or mamma will be sending Katherine to us presently,' said Mina, as she picked herself up from the rug. 'Good-night, dear, and don't worry. If you wrinkle up your brows like that over every trifle, you will be old before your time.'

Gladys faintly smiled, and bade them good-night. She 'worried' a good deal more than either of them imagined.

'I say, Clara, I do wish we could induce Gladys to leave that girl alone,' Mina said to her sister, as she threw off her evening gown and began to brush out her hair. 'I have the oddest feeling about it, just as if it would make mischief. Haven't you?'

'No; but you needn't try to dissuade Gladys from anything she has set her mind upon. I never saw anybody so "sot," as Artemus Ward would say; she's positive to the verge of obstinacy. But what makes you have any feeling in the matter I can't imagine; you never even saw the girl in your life.'

'No, but I feel interested in her, all the same. And, I say'—

She broke off there rather suddenly, and meditatively brushed her hair for a few seconds in silence.

'Did you notice that afternoon we had the tea, after all the people were gone, you remember that Cousin George spilled the contents of a cup on mamma's gown?'

'Yes, I remember that, of course, but what can it have to do with Gladys and this Hepburn girl?'

'Did nothing occur to you in connection with his unusual awkwardness? Don't you remember what we were talking of at the time?'

'No,' replied Clara, and she paused with her bodice half pulled over her lovely shoulders, and a slow wonder on her beautiful, placid face.

'Well, Gladys was telling us at the very moment about the disappearance of this Hepburn girl, as you call her, and I happened to be looking at Cousin George while she was speaking, and, Clara, I can't for the life of me help thinking he knows something about it.'

No sooner were the words out of her mouth than Mina saw that she had made a profound mistake. The red colour leaped into her sister's face, dyeing even the curves of her stately throat.

'I think you are a wicked, uncharitable girl, Mina,' she said, with icy coldness. 'I wonder you are not ashamed to have such a thought for a moment. I only beg of you not to let it go any further. It may do more harm than you think.'

So saying, Clara gathered up all her wraps and marched off to her own room, leaving her sister feeling rather hurt and humiliated, though not in the least convinced that she had simply given rein to an uncharitable imagination. Mina was indeed so much troubled that she went off her sleep—a most unusual experience for her; and the morning failed to banish, as it often benignly banishes, the misgivings of the night.

Once more Gladys made a pilgrimage to the old home where Walter dwelt alone, working early and late, the monotony of his toil only brightened by one constant hope. It was a strange existence for the lad on the threshold of his young manhood, and many who knew something of his way of life wondered at the steady and dogged persistence with which he pursued his avocation. He appeared to have reached, while yet not much past his boyhood, the grave, passionless calm which comes to most men only after they have outlived the passion of their youth. He was regarded as a sharp, hard-working young man, with a keen eye for business, and honourable and just, but conspicuously hard to deal with—one whose word was as his bond, and who, being so absolutely reliable himself, suffered no equivocation or crooked dealings in others. By slow but certain degrees he had extricated himself from the strange network which old Abel Graham had woven about the business, and established it upon the basis of sound, straightforward dealing. The old customers, in spite of certain advantages the new system offered, dropped away from him one by one, but others took their place. When Walter balanced his books at the end of the first year, he had reason to be not only content, but elated, and he was enabled to carry out at once certain extensions which he had quite expected would only be justifiable after the lapse of some years. But, while prospering beyond his highest anticipations, what of the growth of the true man, the development of the great human soul, which craves a higher destiny than mere grovelling among the sordid things of earth? While supremely unconscious of any change in himself, there was nevertheless a great change—a very great change indeed. It was inevitable. A life so narrow, so circumscribed, so barren of beauty, lived so solitarily, away from every softening influence, was bound to work a subtle and relentless change. The man of one idea is apt to starve his soul in his effort to make it subservient to the furtherance of his solitary aim. To be a successful man, to win by his own unaided effort a position which would entitle him to meet Gladys Graham on equal ground, such was his ambition, and it never did occur to him that this very striving might make him unfit in other ways to be her mate. His isolated life, absolutely unrelieved by any social intercourse with his fellows, made him silent by choice, still and self-contained in manner, abrupt of speech. In his unconsciousness it never occurred to him that it is the little courtesies and graces of speech and action which commend a man first to the notice of the woman he wants to win. He was, though he did not know it, a melancholy spectacle; but his awakening was at hand.

Gladys made her second call at the house in Colquhoun Street, as before, early in the day. It seemed very familiar, though it was many months since she had passed that way. It seemed a more hopeless and squalid street than she had yet thought it. She picked her steps daintily through the greasy mud, holding her skirts high enough to show a most bewitching pair of feet, cased in Parisian boots, only there was nobody visible to admire them but a grimy butcher's boy, with a basket on his head, and he stared with all his might.

The warehouse door, contrary to the old custom, stood wide open, as if inviting all comers. Gladys gave a glance along the passage which led to the living-rooms, but was not moved to revisit them. She went at once up the grimy staircase, giving a little light cough as she neared the landing, a herald of her coming. She heard quite distinctly the grating of the stool on the floor, and a step coming towards her—a step which even now sounded quite familiarly in her ears.

'It is I—Gladys,' she said, trying to speak quite naturally, but conscious of a shrinking embarrassment which made her cheeks nervously flush. 'The door was open, so I came right in. How are you, Walter?'

In his face shone something of the old bright friendliness, but as she looked at the shabby youth, with his unshaved face and threadbare clothes, her fastidious eye disapproved of him just as it had disapproved of him when they met, boy and girl, for the first time in the rooms below.

'I am quite well,' he answered in his quick, abrupt unsmiling manner. 'But why do you always come without any warning? If you let me know, I should be ready for you. I am always busy in the morning, and a fellow who has so much hard work to do can't always be in trim to receive ladies.'

It was rather an ungracious greeting, which Gladys was quick enough to resent. The gentle meekness of the girl had merged itself into the dignity of the woman, which insists upon due deference being paid.

'I am quite sorry if I intrude, Walter,' she said rather stiffly. 'I shall not keep you long. All the same, I am coming in to sit down for a little, as I have something very particular to speak to you about.'

'Come in. Of course you know I am glad to see you,' he said hurriedly; and Gladys could not help rather enjoying his evident confusion. If he felt nervous and awkward in her presence, it was no more than he deserved to feel, since she was so entirely unchanged.

'I am glad you have the grace to be civil, at least,' she said, with a bewildering smile, which vanished, however, when she seated herself on the battered old office-stool; all her anxiety and troubled concern made her face grave to sadness as she put the question—

'Do you know that your sister is in Glasgow?'



CHAPTER XXVIII.

A TROUBLED HEART.

Walter did not know. His expression of surprise, tinged with alarm and a touch of shame, answered her before he spoke.

'How do you know that?' he asked.

'I saw her last night in Berkeley Street, just outside the Crown Halls, where we were at a concert,' said Gladys. 'Is it possible you have never seen her?'

'No; and I don't believe it was her you saw. You must have made a mistake,' replied Walter quickly.

'It was no mistake, because she looked into our carriage, and I saw her quite plainly. Besides, do you think that any one who has seen Liz once would ever forget her face? I have never seen one like it.'

'I don't know anything about it, and I care less,' Walter said with unpromising hardness.

Gladys did not know that the simple announcement she had brought to him in all faith, believing even that he might be in a sense relieved and glad to hear it, tortured him to the very soul. He felt so bitter against Gladys at the moment that he could have ordered her away. Her dainty presence, her air of ladyhood, her beautiful ways, almost maddened him; but Gladys was quite unconscious of it.

'Have you not been at your father's house lately, then?' she asked. 'Of course she must be there. How glad they will be to have her safely at home again! Do you think she would be glad to see me if I went to-day?'

'No, she wouldn't, even if she were there, which I know is not the case. I was there myself yesterday, and they had never heard anything about her. I wish to heaven you would leave us alone, and let us sink into the mire we are made for! We don't want such fine ladies as you coming patronising us, and trying to make pious examples of us. We are quite happy—oh, quite happy—as we are.'

He spoke with an awful bitterness, with a passion which made him terrible to look upon, but Gladys only shrank a little, only a little, under this angry torrent. Her vision was clearer than a year ago. She read the old friend now with unerring skill, and looked at him steadily with gentle, sorrowful eyes.

'You are very angry, Walter, and you think it is with me, but I know better, and you cannot prevent me trying to find out what has become of poor Lizzie. I loved her, and love has certain rights, even you will admit that.'

Her gentle words relieved the tension of his passion, and he became calmer in a moment.

'If it is true that she is in Glasgow, it is easy knowing what has become of her,' he said, with an ironical smile. 'Take my advice, and let her alone. She never was company for you, anyhow, and now less than ever. Let her alone.'

'Oh, I can't do that, Walter. You have no idea how much I have thought about her. It has often kept me from sleeping, I assure you. I have so many blessings, I wish to share them. To make others happy is all the use money is for.'

Walter was secretly touched, secretly yearning over her with a passion of admiration—ay, and of sympathy, but his passive face betrayed nothing. He listened as he might have listened to a customer's complaint, yet with even a slighter exhibition of interest. Strange that he should thus be goaded against his better impulses to show so harsh a front to the being he passionately loved, unless it was part of the role he had mapped out for himself.

'I heard that you had invited Teen Balfour to your estate; is she there yet?' he asked; and Gladys did not know whether he asked in scorn or in jest.

'Yes, she is at Bourhill still, and will remain for some time. Have you got anybody in Mrs. Macintyre's place? It was rather selfish of me, perhaps, to take her away without consulting you.'

'It didn't affect me in the least, I assure you. Mrs. Macintyre was not indispensable to my comfort. So you like being a fine rich lady? Don't you remember how I prophesied you would, and how indignant you were? After all, there is a good deal of worldly wisdom in the slums.'

'You prophesied that I should in a week forget, or wish to forget, this place, and that has not come true, since I am here to-day,' she said, trying to smile, though her heart was sore. 'Won't you tell me now how you are getting on? Excuse me saying that I don't think you look very prosperous or very happy.'

'Nevertheless, the thing will pay; there isn't any doubt about the prosperity. As for the happiness,' he added, with a shrug of the shoulders, 'I don't think there is much real happiness in this world.'

'Oh yes, there is,' she cried eagerly, 'a great deal of it, if only one will take the trouble to look for it. It is in little things, Walter, that happiness is found, and you might be very happy indeed, if you would not delight in being so bitter and morose. It is so very bad for you. Some day, when you want to throw it off, you will not be able to do so, because it will have become a habit with you. I must tell you quite plainly what I think, because it makes me so unhappy to see you like this. You always remind me of Ishmael, whose hand was against every man. What has changed you so terribly?'

'Circumstances. Yes, I am the victim of circumstances.'

'There is no such thing,' said Gladys calmly. 'That is a phrase with which people console themselves in misfortunes they often bring upon themselves. If you would only think of the absurdity of what you are saying. You have admitted your prosperity; and the other troubles, home troubles, which I know are very trying, need not overwhelm you. You are much less manly, Walter, now you are a man, than I expected you to be. You have quite disappointed me, and without reason.'

He was surprised, and could not hide it. The gentle, simple, shrinking girl had changed into a self-reliant, keen-sighted woman, and from the serene height of her gracious womanhood calmly convicted him of his folly and his besetting weakness, and, manlike, his first impulse, thus convicted, was to resent her interference.

'Whatever I may do, it can't affect you now, you are so far removed from me,' he said, without looking at her; and Gladys, disappointed, and a little indignant, rose to go.

'Very well; good-bye. It is always the same kind of good-bye,' she said quietly. 'If ever, when you look back upon it, it should grieve you, remember it was always your doing, yours alone. But even yet, though you may not believe it, Walter, your old friend will remain quite unchanged.'

His face flushed, and he dashed his hand with a hasty gesture across his eyes.

'I am not changed,' he said huskily. 'You need not reproach me with that. You know nothing about the struggle it is for me here, nor what I have to fight against. It was you who taught me first to be discontented with my lot, to strive after something higher. I sometimes wish now that we had never met.'

'Whatever happens, Walter, I shall never wish that; and I hope one day you will be sorry for ever having said such a thing,' she said, with a proud ring in her clear, sweet voice. 'I hope—I hope one day everything will be made right; just now it all seems so very wrong and hard to bear.'

She left him hurriedly then, just as she had left him before, at the moment when he could have thrown himself at her feet, and revealed to her all the surging passion of his soul.

Gladys felt so saddened and disheartened that she could not bear to return to Bellairs Crescent, to the inevitable questioning which she knew awaited her there. If the Fordyces were kind, they were also a trifle fussy, and sometimes nettled Gladys by their too obvious and exacting interest in her concerns. She ran up to the office in St. Vincent Street, and told Mr. Fordyce she was going off to Mauchline by the one-o'clock train, and begged him to send a boy with an explanation to the Crescent. Mr. Fordyce was very good-natured, and not at all curious; it never occurred to him to try and dissuade her from such a hurried departure, or pester her with questions about it. He simply set her down to write her note at his own desk, then took her out to lunch, and finally put her in her train, all in his own easy, pleasant, fatherly way, and Gladys felt profoundly grateful to him.

Her arrival being unexpected, there was no one to meet her at Mauchline Station, but the two-and-a-half-mile walk did not in the least disconcert her. It seemed as if the clear, cool south wind—the wind the huntsman loves—blew all the city cobwebs from her brain, and again raised her somewhat jaded spirits. She could even think hopefully of Liz, and her mind was full of schemes for her redemption, when she espied, at a short distance from her own gates, the solitary figure of Teen, with her hand shading her eyes, looking anxiously down the road. She had found life at Bourhill insufferably dull without its mistress.

'Have ye walkit a' that distance?' she cried breathlessly, having run all her might to meet her. 'Ye'll be deid tired. What way did ye no' send word?'

'Because I came off all in a hurry this morning,' answered Gladys, with a smile; for the warm welcome glowing in the large eyes of the little seamstress did her good. 'And how have you been—you and Miss Peck, and all the people?'

'Fine; but, my, it's grand to see ye back,' said Teen, with a boundless satisfaction. 'It's no' like the same place when ye are away. An' hoo's Glesca lookin'—as dreich as ever?'

'Quite. And oh, Teen, I have found Liz at last. I saw her last night in Berkeley Street.'

'Saw Liz in Berkeley Street? Surely, never!' repeated Teen, aghast.

'It is quite true. I think she cannot have been away from Glasgow at all. We must try and find her, you and I, and get her down here.'

'I'll get her, if she's in Glesca!' cried Teen excitedly. 'Did ye speak to her? What did she look like?'

'Very ill, I thought, and strange,' answered Gladys slowly. 'She only peeped into our carriage window as we drove away from the concert hall.'

'It's queer,' said Teen musingly,—'very queer. I feel as if I wad like to gang back to Glesca this very day, and see her.'

'You might go to-morrow, if you like,' said Gladys. 'I daresay you will find her much quicker than I should; she would not be so shy of you.'

Teen turned her head and gave Gladys a strange, intent look, which seemed to ask a question. The girl was indeed asking herself whether it might not be better to let the whole matter rest. She suspected that there might be in this case wheels within wheels which might seriously involve the happiness of her who deserved above all others the highest happiness the world can give. The little seamstress was perplexed, saddened, half-afraid, torn between two loves and two desires. She wished she knew how much or how little George Fordyce was to Gladys Graham, yet dared not to ask the question.

But so great was the absorbing desire of Gladys to find means of communication with Liz that she would not let the matter rest. Next day the visit of the little seamstress to Bourhill was brought apparently to a very sudden end and she returned to town—not, however, to sue for work at the hands of the stony-visaged forewoman, but to carry out the behest of the young lady of Bourhill.



CHAPTER XXIX.

AN AWAKENING.

The interview with Gladys upset Walter for the day. When she was gone, he found it impossible to fix his attention on his books or any of the details of his business. He could not even sit still, but wandered restlessly up and down his domain, trying to unravel his own thoughts. The subtle fragrance of her presence, like some rare perfume, seemed to pervade the place, and her words continued to haunt him, till he felt angry and impatient with her, with himself, with all the world. He had now two persons in his employment—a man who delivered goods on a hand-barrow, and a lad who filled a position similar to that which had been Walter's own in Abel Graham's days.

When this lad returned after the dinner hour, Walter left him in charge, and took himself into the streets, pursued by that vague restlessness he could neither understand nor shake off. Looking in at the mirrored window of a great shop in St. Vincent Street, he saw the image of himself reflected, a tall, lean figure, shabbily clad—an image which filled him with a sudden loathing and contempt. He stood quite still, and calmly appraised himself, taking in every meagre detail of his appearance, noting the grimy hue of the collar he had worn three days, the glazed front of the frayed black tie, the soft, greasy rim of the old hat. Yes, he told himself, he was a most disreputable-looking object, with nothing in his appearance to suggest prosperity, or even decent comfort. A grim humour smote him suddenly, and thrusting his hand into his pocket, he brought it out full of money, and rapidly counted it. Then he opened the door of the fashionable tailor's, and walked in. He was regarded, as was to be expected, a trifle superciliously by the immaculately-attired young gentlemen therein.

'I want a suit of clothes,' he said in his straight, abrupt fashion,—'a good suit; the best you have in your shop.'

The young gentlemen regarded him and each other with such significance in their glances that their shabby-looking customer turned on his heel.

'I can be served elsewhere, I guess, without so much hesitation,' he said, and in an instant he was intercepted with profuse apologies, and patterns of the best materials in the shop laid before him.

'I'll take this,' said Walter, after refusing several.

'It is very expensive, sir—beautiful material, but a suit made to measure will be five guineas,' said the young gentleman suggestively.

'I'll take it,' said Walter calmly. 'And I want an overcoat, and a hat, and some other things. Show me what you have.'

The fascination of choosing new garments for personal wear was upon Walter Hepburn, and he spent a whole hour in the shop, selecting an outfit which did credit to his taste and discernment. Before that hour was over he had risen very considerably in the opinion of those who served him—his choice invariably falling on what was not only most expensive, but in the best taste.

'Now, how much is to pay? I'll pay ready money to-day, and send for the things when they are ready, which I hope will be soon.'

'Very well, sir; but there is no hurry, I assure you,' said the young gentleman suavely. 'Payment on delivery is always quite satisfactory.'

'I'll pay to-day,' Walter replied, with his hand in his pocket; and when the bill was presented he ran his eye over it without a change of face.

'Twelve pounds eight shillings and twopence,' he said slowly, and counted out the bank notes carelessly, as if the handling of them was his daily work. Then, having made arrangements for fitting, he went his way, leaving a very odd impression on the minds of the shop people. Had he heard their surmises and comments, he would have felt at once amused and chagrined.

From St. Vincent Street he sauntered back to Argyle Street, and took a Bridgeton car. Thoughts of Liz were crowding thick and fast upon him, and he found himself scanning the faces of the people in the crowded streets, and even looking up expectantly each time the car stopped, assuring himself he would not be in the least surprised were his sister to appear suddenly before him. He was ill at ease concerning her. If it were true that she was in Glasgow, then his first fears concerning her were likely to have some foundation. It was curious that all resentment seemed to have died out of his mind, and that he felt nothing but an indescribable longing to see her again. Strange and unnatural as it may seem, he had not for a very long time felt any such kindly affection towards his parents. He did his duty by them so far as the giving of money was concerned, but they lay upon his heart like a heavy weight, and he lived in dread of some calamity happening, for they were seldom sober. He could not help asking himself sometimes whether he was justified in giving them so liberal an allowance, since relief from all pecuniary anxiety seemed to have only made them more dissipated and abandoned. It was very seldom indeed that his father now wrought a day's work. These were heavy burdens for the young man to bear, and he may be forgiven his morbid pride, his apparent hardness of heart. It is a common saying that living sorrows are worse than death—they eat like a canker into the soul. It was his anxiety about Liz which took Walter to the dreary house in Bridgeton at that unusual hour of the day. He thought it quite likely that if she were in Glasgow they would have seen or heard something of her. He made a point of visiting them once a week, and his step was never buoyant as he ascended that weary stair, nor when he descended it on his homeward way, for he was either saddened and oppressed anew with their melancholy state, or wearied with reproaches, or disgusted with petty grumblings and unsavoury details of the neighbours' shortcomings and domestic affairs. It is a tragedy we see daily in our midst, this gradual estrangement of those bound by ties of blood, and who ought, but cannot possibly be bound by ties of love. Love must be cherished; it is only in the rarest instances it can survive the frost of indifference and neglect. The drink fiend has no respect of persons; the sanctity of home and God-given affections is ruthlessly destroyed, high and holy ambitions sacrificed, hearts remorselessly broken, graves dug above the heavenliest hopes.

Walter Hepburn was always grave, oftentimes sorrowful, because with the years had come fuller knowledge, keener perception, clearer visions that the sorrows of his youth were sorrows which could darken his young manhood and shadow all his future. It was a profound relief to him that day to find his mother tidier than usual, busy with preparations for the mid-day meal. He never knew how he should find them; too often a visit to that home made him sick at heart.

'Ye are an early visitor, my man,' his mother said, in surprise. 'What's brocht ye here at sic a time?'

'Is Liz here?' he inquired, with a quick glance round the kitchen.

'Liz! No.'

In her surprise at this unexpected question, Mrs. Hepburn paused, with the lid of the broth-pot in her hand, looking wonderingly into her son's face.

'What gars ye ask that?'

'I heard she was in Glasgow, that's why,' Walter answered cautiously. 'Where's the old man? Not working, surely?'

'Ay; he's turned over a new leaf for three days, workin' orra at Stevenson's; they're short o' men the noo. He'll be in to his denner the noo. Wull ye tak' a bite wi' us? It's lang since ye broke breid in this hoose.'

'I don't mind if I do,' replied Walter, laying off his hat and drawing the arm-chair up to the fire. 'So you have never seen Liz? The person that saw her must have made a mistake.'

'Wha was't?'

'A lady. You don't know her. Have you never heard anything about her at all, then?'

'No' a cheep. She's in London, they say—the folk that pretend to ken a'thing. I'm sure I'm no' carin'.'

'And my father's really working this week? Oh, mother, if only he would keep steady, it would make all the difference. You look better yourself, too. Are you not far better without drink?'

'Maybe. We've made a paction, onyway, for a week, till we see,' said Mrs. Hepburn, with a slow smile. 'The way o't was this. We fell oot wan day, an' he cuist up to me that I couldna keep frae't, an' I jist says, says I, "Ye canna keep frae't yersel'," an' it's for spite we're no' touchin't. I dinna think mysel' he'll staun' oot past Seterday.'

Walter could not forbear a melancholy smile.

'It's not a very high motive, but better spite than no motive at all,' he answered. 'D'ye think, mother, that Liz can be in Glasgow?'

'Hoo should I ken? There's yer faither's fit on the stair, an' the tatties no' ready, but they'll be saft in a jiffy. He canna wait a meenit for his meat. As I say, he thinks it should be walkin' doon the stair to meet him. Ay, my man, it's you I'm on.'

She made a great clatter with knives and spoons on the table, and then made a rush to pour the water off the potatoes.

'Hulloa, Wat, what's up?' inquired the old man, as genuinely surprised as his wife had been to see his son.

'I heard Liz was in Glasgow, and I came to see if she was here,' answered Walter. 'So you're working again? I must say work agrees with you, father; you look a different man.'

'Oh, I'm no' past wark. If I like, I can dae my darg wi' ony man,' he replied rather ironically. 'Pit oot the kale, Leezbeth, or we'll be burnt to daith. Are ye slack yersel' that ye can come ower here at wan o'clock in the day?'

'I'm slacker than I was,' said Walter, 'but I can't complain, either.'

'An' what was that ye said aboot Liz, that she was here in Glesca? Weel, if she is, she's never lookit near. It's gentry bairns we hae, Leezbeth; let's be thankfu' for them.'

This mild sarcasm did not greatly affect Walter, he was too familiar with it.

'I heard she had been seen, but perhaps it was a mistake. It must have been, or she would surely have come here. You are working at Stevenson's, mother says; will it be permanent?'

'I'll see. It depends on hoo I feel,' replied the old man complacently. 'I've been in waur places, an' the gaffer's very slack. He disna work a ten-hoors' day ony mair than the rest o's.'

'Though you are paid for it, I suppose?' said Walter.

'Ay, but naebody but a born fule will kill himsel' unless he's made dae't,' was the reply.

'I wouldn't keep a man who didn't do a fair day's work for a fair day's wage, nor would you,' said Walter. 'I believe that nobody would make more tyrannical masters than working men themselves, just as women who have been servants themselves make the most exacting mistresses.'

'This is Capital speakin' noo, Leezbeth,' said his father very sarcastically. 'It's kind o' amusin'. We're the twa sides, as it were—Capital and Labour. Ye've no' been lang o' forgettin' whaur ye sprang frae, my man.'

Walter's father had been a skilful workman in his day, with an intelligence above the average; had he kept from drink, there is no doubt he would have risen from the ranks. Even yet gleams of the old spirit which had often displayed itself at workmen's meetings and demonstrations would occasionally shine forth. Walter was thankful to see it, and after spending a comparatively pleasant hour with them, he went his way with a lighter and happier feeling about them than he had experienced for many a day.



CHAPTER XXX.

TOO LATE!

George Fordyce was listening to a maternal lecture the morning after a dance, at which he had been distributing his attentions very freely among the most attractive of the young ladies present. The breakfast was nearly an hour late, and mother and son partook of it alone, Mr. Fordyce being in London on business, and the fair Julia not yet out of bed.

'It's all your nonsense, mother,' said George imperturbably. 'I didn't pay special court to anybody except Clara. She was the best dancer in the room and very nearly the handsomest girl.'

'You should have pity on Clara, my dear,' his mother said indulgently. 'You know she is fond of you; she can't hide it, poor thing, and it is a shame to pay her too much attention in public, when it can't come to anything.'

'I can't help it if girls will be silly,' was the complacent reply. 'Clara is all very well as a cousin, but I'd like more spirit in a wife.'

'It strikes me you will get enough of it if you should be successful where we wish you to be successful,' said his mother, with a keen glance across the table. 'Gladys Graham is a very self-willed piece of humanity. Your Aunt Isabel told me only yesterday of her absurd fad to have common girls visiting her at Bourhill. It is quite time somebody took her firmly in hand, or she will become that insufferable kind of person, a woman with a mission to set the world right.'

George emptied his coffee-cup, and returned his mother's look with one equally steady and keen.

'There is no use going on at me, mother. I've done all I can do in the meantime. I asked her, and she'—

'Did not refuse you, I hope?' exclaimed Mrs. Fordyce, with a gasp.

'Well, not quite; she said I must leave her alone for a long time, and I mean to. It isn't pleasant for a fellow to be sat on by a girl—especially,' he added, with a significant shrug, 'when he isn't used to it.'

'I wish you would tell me when all this happened. You have been very close about it, George,' his mother said reproachfully.

'I wish I had remained close; but now that I've let the cat out, I may as well tell the whole tale. It was only a fortnight ago—that Saturday afternoon I was down at Bourhill. I had no intention of committing myself when I went, but somehow I got carried away, and asked her. I believe I should have had a more favourable answer, but a confounded maid came in with tea—as they always do when nobody wants them.'

'And what did she say?' queried Mrs. Fordyce, in breathless interest.

'Faith, I can't remember exactly,' George replied, and his mother was more than astonished to see his cheek flushing. 'I know she asked me to wait, and not to bother her. I believe she'll have me in the end. Anyhow, I mean to have her, and it's the same thing, isn't it?'

'I hope it may be; but if you take my advice, my dear, don't leave her alone too much, in case somebody else more enterprising and not so easily repulsed should step in before you. If I were a man I wouldn't walk off for a girl's first No.'

'You don't know a blessed thing about what you're talking of, mother,' replied George, with calm candour. 'If you were a man, and had a girl looking at you with a steady stare, and telling you to get out, well, I guess you'd get out pretty quick, that's all.'

Mrs. Fordyce laughed.

'Well, perhaps so; but it is very important that you should follow up your advantage, however slight it may be. It would be a most desirable alliance. Think of her family; it would be a splendid connection. You would be a county gentleman, to begin with.'

'And call myself Fordyce Graham? Eh, mother?' said George lazily. 'There are worse sounding names. But Gladys herself affects to have no pride in her long descent; that very day she was quoting to me that rot of Burns about rank being only the guinea stamp, and all that sort of thing. All very well for a fellow like Burns, who was only a ploughman. It has done Gladys a lot of harm living in the slums; it won't be easy eradicating her queer notions, I can tell you.'

'Oh, after she is married, if you take her well in hand, it will be easy enough,' said his mother confidently. 'She did not give you a positive refusal, then?'

'No; but I'm not going to make myself too cheap,' said George; 'it seldom pays in any circumstances—in dealings with women, never. They set all the more store by a fellow who thinks a good deal of himself.'

'Then you should be very successful,' said Mrs. Fordyce, with a smile. 'Well, remember that nothing will give your father and me greater pleasure than to hear that you are engaged to Gladys Graham.'

'Well, I'd better get out of this. Twenty minutes to eleven! By Jove, wonder what the governor would say if he were to pop in just now? Thunder's not in it.'

So the amiable and self-satisfied George took himself off to the mill, and all day long thought much of his mother's advice, and somehow he felt himself being impelled towards paying another visit to Bourhill. Out of that visit arose portentous issues, which were to have the strongest possible influence upon the future of Gladys Graham. He found her in a lonely and impressionable mood, and left the house, to his own profound astonishment, an accepted lover.

That very evening, after he was gone, Gladys sat by the fire in her spacious drawing-room, turning upon her third finger the diamond ring George Fordyce had transferred from his own hand to hers, whispering as he did so that she should soon have one worthier of her. Watching the flashing of the stone in the gleaming firelight, she wondered to see tears, matching the diamonds in brilliance, falling on her gown. She did not understand these tears; she did not think herself unhappy, though she felt none of that passionate, trembling joy which happy love, as she had heard and read of it, is entitled to feel. She realised that she had taken a great and important step in life, and that it seemed to weigh upon her, that was all. In her loneliness she longed passionately for some sympathetic soul to lean upon. Miss Peck had gone back to the fen country to see a dying friend, and for some days she had heard nothing of Teen, who was pursuing in Glasgow her search for the lost and mysterious Liz. In the midst of the strange reverie she heard footsteps on the stair, and presently a knock came to the door. As it was opened, the silver chimes of the old brass clock rang seven.

'Mr. Hepburn.'

Gladys sprang up, struck by the familiar name, yet not expecting to behold her old companion in the flesh, and there he was, standing modestly, yet with so much manliness and courage in his bearing, that she could not forbear a little cry of welcome as she ran to him with outstretched hands. It seemed as if her prayer for the sympathy of one who understood her was answered far beyond any hope or expectations she had cherished regarding it.

'Oh, Walter, I am so very glad to see you! It is so good of you to come. I have so often wished to see you here. Come away, come away!'

The accepted lover, at that moment being whirled back by express train to Glasgow, would not have approved of those warm words, nor of the light shining all over the girl's sweet face as she uttered them. But he would have been compelled to admit that in Gladys's old companion of the slums he had no mean rival. The St. Vincent Street tailor had done his duty by his eccentric customer, and not only given him value for his money, but converted him, so far as outward appearance goes, into a new man. Philosophers and cynics have from time to time had their fling at the tyranny of clothes, but it still remains an undisputed fact that a well-dressed man is always much more comfortable and self-respecting than an ill-dressed one. When Walter Hepburn beheld the new man the tailor had turned out, a strange change came over him, and he saw in himself possibilities hitherto undreamed of. He realised for the first time that he looked fitter than most men to win a woman's approval, and I am quite safe in saying that Gladys owed this totally unlooked-for visit entirely to the St. Vincent Street tailor.

'So very glad to see you,' she repeated, and she thought it no treachery to her absent lover to keep hold of the hand she had taken in greeting. 'And looking so nice and so handsome! Oh, Walter, now I am no longer unhappy about you, for I see you have awakened at last to a sense of what you ought to be.'

It was a tribute to clothes, but it sank with unalloyed sweetness into the young man's heart.

'You are very kind to me, Gladys, and I do not deserve any such welcome. I was afraid, indeed, that you might refuse to see me, as you would be perfectly justified in doing.'

'Oh, Walter,' she said reproachfully, 'how dare you say such a thing? Refuse to see you, indeed! Do sit down and tell me everything. Do you know, it is just my dinner hour, and you shall dine with me; and how delightful that will be. I thought of sending down to say I didn't wish any dinner, it is so lonely eating alone.'

'Where is the lady who lives with you? You had a lady, hadn't you?'

'Yes—Miss Peck. She has gone back to Lincoln to see her aunt who is dying, and I am quite alone, though to-morrow I expect one of Mr. Fordyce's daughters. And now, tell me, have you heard anything of Liz?'

The voice sank to a grave whisper, and her eyes grew luminous with anxiety and sympathetic concern.

'Nothing,' Walter answered, with a shake of his head, 'and I have been inquiring all round, too. My father and mother have never seen or heard anything of her. I think you must have made a mistake that night in Berkeley Street.'

'If it was not Liz, it was her ghost,' said Gladys quite gravely. 'I cannot understand it. But, come, let us go down-stairs. You ought to offer me your arm, Walter. I cannot help laughing when I think of Mrs. Fordyce, she would be so horrified were she to see me now. She tries so hard to make me quite conventional, and she isn't able to do it.'

'She may be right, though,' said Walter, and though he would have given worlds for the privilege, he dared not presume to take Gladys at her word and offer her his arm. But they went into the dining-room side by side; and at the table, Gladys, though watching keenly, detected very little of the old awkwardness, none at all of that blunt rudeness of speech and manner which had often vexed her sensitive soul. For the first time for many many months Walter permitted himself to be at ease and perfectly natural in his manner, and the result was entirely satisfactory; self-consciousness is fatal to comfort always. Gladys wore a black gown of some shimmering soft material, with a quaint frill of old lace falling over the low collar, a bunch of spring snowdrops at her belt, and her lovely hair bound with the black velvet band which none could wear just in the same way—a very simple, unostentatious home toilet, but she looked, Walter thought, like a queen. Possessed of a wonderful tact, Gladys managed, while the meal progressed, to confine the conversation to commonplace topics, so that the servant who attended should not be furnished with food for remark. Both were glad, however, to return to the drawing-room, where their talk could be quite unrestrained.