be beautiful, I think,' said
Gladys, with a little smile.

'For ladies, for you, perhaps it is, but not for Liz,' said Walter. 'It
would be better for her if she looked like Teen.'

Gladys did not ask why.

'I am very sorry for her too. It is so dreadful her life, sewing all day
at these coarse garments. I have many mercies, more than I thought. And
for so little money! It is dreadful--a great sin; do you not think so?'

'Oh yes, it's a sin; but it's the way o' the world,' answered Walter
indifferently. 'Very likely, if I were a man and had a big shop, I'd do
just the same--screw as much as possible out of folk for little pay.
That's gospel.'

Gladys laid her hand on his arm, and her eyes shone upon him. 'It will
not be your gospel, Walter, that I know. Some day you will be a rich
man, perhaps, and then you will show the world what a rich man can do.
Isn't there a verse in the Bible which says, "Blessed is he that
considereth the poor"? You will consider the poor then, Walter, and I
will help you. We shall be able to do it all the better because we have
been so poor ourselves.'

It was a new evangel for that proud, restless, bitter young heart, upon
which the burden of life already pressed so heavily. Gladys did not
know till long after, that these words, spoken out of the fulness of her
sympathy, made a man of him from that very day, and awakened in him the
highest aspirations which can touch a human soul.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VII.

LIZ SPEAKS HER MIND.

'Wat,' said Liz Hepburn to her brother next time he came home, 'what
kind o' a lassie is thon?'

It was a question difficult for Walter to answer, and, Scotch-like, he
solved it by putting another.

'What do you think of her?'

'I dinna ken; she's no' like ither folk.'

'But you liked her, Liz?' said Walter, with quite evident anxiety.

'Oh ay; but she's queer. How does she get on wi' Skinny?'

'Well enough. I believe he likes her, Liz, if he would let on.'

Liz made a grimace.

'I daursay, if he can like onything. I telt her my mind on the business
plain, an' offered to get her into our mill.'

'Oh, Liz, you might have had more sense! Her work in a mill!' cried
Walter, with more energy than elegance.

'An' what for no'?' queried Liz sharply. 'I suppose she's the same flesh
and bluid as me.'

'Shut up, you twa,' said a querulous, peevish voice from the ingle-neuk,
where the mother, dull-eyed, depressed, and untidy, sat with her e