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 pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sionately; 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 la.s.sie.'

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 la.s.sies 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.