gyle Street, she
continued up the familiar dull street till she reached the warehouse
door. She stopped outside, and there being no one in sight, she laid her
slender hand on the handle with a lingering--ay, a caressing touch, and
then, as if ashamed, she turned about and quickly hurried out of sight.

And no one saw that tender, touching little act except a grimy sparrow
on the leads, and he flew off with a loud chirp, and, joining a
neighbour on the old stunted tree, made so much noise that it was just
possible he was delivering his opinion of the whole matter.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXI.

ACROSS THE CHANNEL.

For the first time in her life Gladys tasted the novelty of foreign
travel. It was quite a lady's party, consisting of Mrs. Fordyce and her
daughters, though Mr. Fordyce had promised to join them somewhere
abroad, especially if they remained too long away; also, there were
vague promises on the part of the Pollokshields cousins to meet them in
Paris, after the main object of their visit to Belgium was accomplished.

They stayed a week in London--not the London Gladys remembered as in a
shadowy dream. The luxurious life of a first-rate hotel had nothing in
it to remind her of the poor, shabby lodging on the Surrey side of the
river, which was her early and only recollection of the great city. At
the end of a week they crossed from Dover to Ostend, and in the warm,
golden light of a lovely autumn evening arrived in quaint, old-world,
sleepy Bruges. Madame Bonnemain herself met them at the station, a
bright-eyed, red-cheeked, happy-faced little woman, on whom the care and
the worry of life appeared to have sat but lightly during all these hard
years. She was visibly affected at meeting with her old school-friend.

'Why, Henrietta, you are not one bit changed; you actually look younger
than ever,' exclaimed Mrs. Fordyce, when the first agitation, of the
meeting was over. 'Positively, you look as young as you did in Brussels
eight-and-twenty years ago. Just look at me. Yes, these are my
daughters; and this is Gladys Graham, whom I am so anxious to see under
your care.'

The bright, sharp eyes of Madame Bonnemain took in the three girls at
one comprehensive glance, then she shook her head with a half-arch,
half-regretful smile.

'A year ago such a prospect would have seemed to lift me to paradise.
Times have been hard with me, Isabel--never harder than last year; but
it is always the darkest hour