e ye are gaun to be married to
Fordyce o' Gorbals Mill?' As she asked this direct question, she flashed
her brilliant eyes full on the girl's sweet face.

'I suppose I am, sometime,' Gladys answered rather confusedly. 'At
least, I have promised.'

'Ay,' said Liz, 'but there's mony a slip atween the cup an' the lip; and
in time, they say, a'body gets their deserts, even here.'

With this enigmatical speech Liz got up and crossed the lawn, with
averted face, Gladys looking after her with a puzzled wonder in her
eyes, thinking she was certainly a very strange girl, and that it was
hopeless to try to make anything out of her.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXXIX.

GONE.

Towards the end of the second week Liz began to exhibit certain signs of
restlessness, which ought to have warned those concerned in her welfare
that the quiet and seclusion of Bourhill were beginning to pall upon
her. As she improved in her bodily health her mind became more active,
and she began to pine for something more exciting than country walks and
drives. They were not altogether unobservant of the growing change in
her, of course, but attributed it to a returning and healthful interest
in the simpler pleasures of life. All this time George Fordyce had not
come to Bourhill, nor had any letters passed between him and his
promised wife. It would be too much to say that Gladys was quite
indifferent to this; if her feelings were not very deeply involved, her
pride was touched, and the first advances were not at all likely to
emanate from her. Liz had lived in secret dread, mingled with a kind of
happy anticipation, of meeting George Fordyce at Bourhill, and as the
days went by, and there was no sign or talk of his coming, she began to
wonder very much what it all meant. She was a remarkably shrewd person,
and it did occur to her to connect her visit and the absence of Miss
Graham's lover. One day, however, she put a question to Teen as they
sauntered through the spring woods on the hill behind the house.

'I say, is't true that she is gaun to mairry Fordyce, Teen? It's no'
like it. What way does he never look near?'

Teen looked keenly into her companion's face, to which that fortnight of
complete rest and generous living had restored the bloom of health.
Without planning very much, or artfully seeking to mislead the little
seamstress, Liz had thrown her entirely off the scent. Such careless
mention of her old lover's name, and her apparent