'D'ye think Skinny'll let me in?'

'I daresay,' answered Walter abruptly, and, sitting down on the window-box, he looked through the blindless window upon the ma.s.ses of roofs and the twinkling lights of the great city. His heart was heavy, his soul sick within him. His home--so poor a home for him, and for all who called it by that sweet name--had never appeared a more miserable and homeless place. It was not the smallness nor the poverty of its furnishing which concerned him, but the human beings it sheltered, who lay a burden upon his heart. Liz was out of bed, crouching over the fire, with an old red shawl wrapped round her--a striking-looking figure in spite of her general _deshabille_, a girl at whom all men and many women would look twice. He wished she were less striking, that her appearance had matched the only destiny she could look for--grey, meagre, commonplace, hopeless as a dull November day.

'Your p.e.c.k.e.r's no' up, Wat?' she said, looking at him rather keenly.

'What are ye sae doon i' the mooth for?'

Walter made no reply. Truth to tell, he would have found it difficult to give expression to his thoughts.

'He's aye doon i' the mooth when he comes here, Liz,' said the mother, with a pa.s.sing touch of spirit. 'We're ower puir folk for my lord noo that he's gettin' among the gentry.'

'The gentry of Argyle Street an' the Sautmarket, mother?' asked Walter dryly. 'They'll no' do much for ye.'

'Is Skinny no' gaun to raise yer screw, Wat?' asked Liz. 'It's high time he was thinkin' on't.'

'I'll ask him one o' these days, but he might as well keep the money as me. This is a bottomless pit,' he said, with bitterness. 'It could swallow a pound as quick as five shillings, an' never be kent.'

'Ye're richt, Wat; but I wad advise ye to stick in to Skinny. He has siller, they say, an' maybe ye'll finger it some day.'

One night not long after, Liz presented herself at the house in Colquhoun Street, to return the visit of Gladys. As it happened, Walter was not in, having heard of a night school where the fees were so small as to be within the range of his means. Gladys looked genuinely pleased to see her visitor, though she hardly recognised in the fashionably-dressed young lady the melancholy-looking girl she had seen lying on the kitchen bed in the house of the Hepburns.

'Daur I come in? Would he no' be mad?' asked Liz, when they shook hands at the outer door.

'Do you mean my uncle?' asked Gladys. 'He will be quite pleased to see you. Come in; it is so cold here.'

'For you, ay; but I'm as warm's a pie, see, wi' my new fur cape--four an' elevenpence three-farthings at the Polytechnic. Isn't it a beauty, an' dirt cheap?'

Thus talking glibly about what was more interesting to her than anything else in the world, Liz followed Gladys into the kitchen, where the old man sat, as usual, in his arm-chair by the fireside, looking very old and wizened and frail in the flickering glow of fire and candle light.

'This is Walter's sister, Uncle Abel,' Gladys said, with that unconscious dignity which singled her out at once, and gave her a touch of individuality which Liz felt, though she did not in the least understand it.

The old man gave a little grunt, and bade her sit down; but, though not talkative, he keenly observed the two, and saw that they were cast in a different mould. Liz looked well, flushed with her walk, the dark warm fur setting off the brilliance of her complexion, her clothes fitting her with a certain flaunting style, her manner free from the least touch of embarra.s.sment or restraint. Liz Hepburn feared nothing under the sun.

'And are you quite better, Liz?' asked Gladys gently, with a look of real interest and sympathy in her face.

'Oh ay, I'm fine. Wat's no' in?' she said, glancing inquiringly round the place.

'No; he has heard of a teacher who takes evening pupils for book-keeping and these things, and has gone to make arrangements with him.'

Never had the nicety of her speech and her sweet, refined accent been more marked by Abel Graham. He looked at her as she stood by the table, a slender, pale figure, with a strange touch of both child and maiden about her, and he felt glad that she was not like Liz. Not that he thought ill of Liz, or did not see her beauty, such as it was, only he felt that the maiden whom circ.u.mstances had cast into his care and keeping was of a higher type than the red-cheeked, bright-eyed damsel whom so many admired.

'An' when hae ye been oot, micht I ask?' inquired Liz calmly. 'Ye're a jimpy-looking thing.'

'Not since Sunday.'

'Sunday! Mercy me! an' this is Friday. She'll sune be in her grave, Mr.

Graham. Folk maun hae fresh air. What way d'ye no' set her oot every day?'

'She is welcome to go if she likes, miss. I don't keep her in,' answered the old man tartly.

'Maybe no', but likely she has that muckle adae she canna get,' replied Liz fearlessly. 'It's a fine nicht--suppose ye tak' a walk wi' me? The shops is no' shut yet.'

'Shall I go, uncle?' asked Gladys.

'If ye want, certainly; but come in in time of night. Don't be later than nine.'

'Very well,' answered Gladys, and retired into her own room to make ready for her walk.

Then Liz, turning round squarely on her seat, fixed the old man fearlessly with her eyes, and gave him a piece of her mind.

'I saw ye lookin' at her a meenit ago, Maister Graham, an' maybe ye was thinkin' the same as me, that she's no' lang for this world. Is't no' a sin an' a shame for a cratur like that to work in a place like this? but it's waur, if it be true, as folk say, that there's nae need for it.'

So astonished was Abel Graham by this plain speaking on the part of a girl he had never seen in his life, that he could only stare.

'It's true,' added Liz significantly; 'she's yin o' the kind they mak'

angels o', and that's no' my kind nor yours. If I were you, I'd see aboot it, or it'll be the waur for ye, maybe, after.'

Happily, just then Gladys returned for her boots, and in her mild excitement over having a companion to walk with, she did not observe the very curious look on her uncle's face. But Liz did, and gave an inward chuckle.

'How's your father and mother?' he asked, making the commonplace question a cover for the start he had got.

'Oh, they're as well as they can expect to be,' Liz replied. 'He cam'

oot on Monday. I spiered if they had gi'en him a return ticket available for a week.'

The hard little laugh which accompanied these apparently heartless words did not in the least deceive Gladys, and, looking up from the lacing of her boots, she flashed a glance of quick sympathy upon the girl's face, which expressed more than any words.

'They're surely very ill-kinded,' was Abel Graham's comment, in rather a surprised tone. Liz had given him more information about her people in five minutes than Walter had done in the two years he had been with him.

The difference between the two was, that while sharing the bitterness of their home sorrows, the one found a certain relief in telling the worst, the other shut it in his heart, a grief to be brooded over, till all life seemed tinged and poisoned by its degradation.

'Oh, it's drink,' she said carelessly,--'the same auld story. Everything sooms awa' in whisky; they'll soom awa' theirsel's some day wi'd, that's wan comfort. I'm sure that's wan thing Wat an' me's no' likely to meddle wi'. We've seen ower muckle o' the misery o' drink. It'll never be my ruin, onyway. Are ye ready, Gladys?'

'In a minute, just my hat and gloves,' Gladys answered, and again retired.

'I say, sir, d'ye no' think ye should raise Wat's wages? I had twa things to say to ye the nicht, an' I've said them. Ye needna fash to flyte; I'm no' feared. If ye are a rich man, as they say, ye're waur than oor auld yin, for he haunds oot the siller as lang as it lasts.'

'You are a very impudent young woman,' said Abel Graham, 'and not a fit companion for my niece. I can't let her go out with you.'

'Oh, she's gaun the nicht, whether you let her or no',' was the calm answer. 'And as to being impident, some folk ca's the truth impidence, because they're no' accustomed to it. But aboot Wat, ye ken as weel as me, ye micht seek east an' west through Glesca an' no' get sic anither.

He's ower honest. You raise his wages, or he'll quit, if I should seek a place for him mysel'.'

The calm self-a.s.sertion of Liz, which had something almost queenly in it, compelled the respect of the old man, and he even smiled a little across the table to the chair where she sat quite at her ease, delivering herself of these remarkably plain statements. In his inmost soul he even enjoyed them, and felt a trifle sorry when Gladys appeared, ready to go. Liz sprang up at once, and favoured the old miser with a gracious nod by way of farewell.

'Guid-nicht to ye, then, an' mind what I've said. I was in deid earnest, an' I'm richt, as ye'll maybe live to prove. An' mind that there's ower wee a pickle angels in Glesca for the ither kind, and we'd better tak'

care o' what we hae.'

[Ill.u.s.tration]