blue eyes
keenly on the girl's sweet face. Gladys felt that she was being
scrutinised, that the measure of her sincerity was gauged by that look,
but she did not evade it. With Liz, Gladys was much surprised. She was
so different from the picture she had drawn, so different from Walter;
there was not the shadow of a resemblance between them. Many would have
called Liz Hepburn beautiful. She was certainly handsome after her kind,
having straight, clear-cut features, a well-formed if rather coarse
mouth, brilliant blue eyes, and a mass of reddish-brown hair, which set
off the extreme fairness of her skin. Gladys felt fascinated as she
looked, though she felt also that there was something fierce, and even
wild, in the depths of these eyes. Evidently they found satisfaction in
their survey of the stranger's face, for she laid down the paper, and
gave her head a series of little nods.

'Gie her a chair, Teen, and shove the teapat on to the hob,' she said,
offering to her guest such hospitality as was in her power.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VI.

PICTURES OF LIFE.

Gladys sat down, and suddenly became conscious of what she was carrying,
a little flower-pot, in which bloomed a handful of Roman hyacinths,
their delicate and lovely blossoms nestling among the tender green of
their own leaves, and a bit of hardy fern. It was her only treasure,
which she had bought for a few pence in the market one morning, and she
had nothing else to bring to Liz.

'Will you take this? Is it not very pretty? I love it so much, but I
have brought it for you. My father liked a flower when he was ill.'

Liz gave another enigmatical nod, and a faint, slow, melancholy smile
gathered about the lips of Teen as she sat down to her work again, after
having stirred the fire and pushed the dirty brown teapot on to the
coals. In this teapot a black decoction brewed all day, and was partaken
of at intervals by the two; sometimes they ate a morsel of bread to it,
but other sustenance they had none. Little wonder the face of Teen was
as cadaverous as the grave.

Then followed an awkward silence, during which Liz played with the
frayed edge of the blanket, and Teen stitched away for dear life at a
coarse garment, which appeared to be a canvas jacket. A whole pile of
the same lay on the unoccupied bed, and Gladys vaguely wondered whether
the same fingers must reduce the number, but she did not presume to ask.
She did not feel drawn to the melancho