th a vague, yearning wonder which
was almost pain. It brought home to her sharply a sense of all she had
lost in the great and evil city; it was like a revelation of some
boundless good of which she had hitherto lived in ignorance, and it
awakened in her a bitter regret, which was in very truth rebellious
anger, that the beauty of the earth should have so long been hid from
her.

'It's a shame,' she said,--'a horrid shame, that we should never hae
kent there was a place like this ootside o' Glesca. Wha is't made
for?--the rich, I suppose, as the best things are.'

'Oh no,' said Teen quite gently. 'There are plenty puir folk in the
country, an' bad folk tae. Mrs. Galbraith says there's as muckle drink
drucken in Poosie Nancie's on Seterday nicht as in Johnnie Shields' in
the Wynd, but some way it seems different. Look, see, thonder's the big
gate o' Bourhill. Eh, I wonder if Miss Gladys is hame?'

'I say, Teen, ye are very fond o' her, surely?' said Liz curiously.
'Since when? Ye didna like her sae weel that nicht I left ye to tak' her
hame frae the Ariel.'

'No, but I didna ken her then. Yes, I'm fond o' her, an' there's
naething I wadna dae for her. I wad let her walk abune me if it wad dae
her ony guid,' said the little seamstress, her plain face glorified once
more by the great love which had grown up within her till it had become
the passion of her life.

'Ye needna fash; that's the way I've heard lassies speak aboot men, an'
ye get a' yer thanks in ae day,' said Liz bitterly. 'The best thing
onybody can dae in this world is to look efter number one. It's the only
thing worth livin' for. I wish I had never been born, an' I hope I'll
no' live lang, that's mair.'

'Oh, Liz, wheesht!'

'What for should I wheesht? It's no' the first time I've been doon at
the Broomielaw takin' a look roon for a likely place to jump in quietly
frae. That'll be my end, Teen Ba'four, as sure as I'm here the day; then
they'll hae a paragraph in the _News_, an' bury me in the Puirhoose
grave. It's a lively prospect.'

Teen said nothing, only made a vow within herself that she would do what
she could to avert from the girl she loved such a melancholy fate.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

IN VAIN.

Miss Caroline Peck had received that very morning a letter from Mrs.
Fordyce of Bellairs Crescent--a letter which had put her all in a
flutter. It was a letter of warning, counsel, and reproof concerning
Miss Peck's duty