ite a surprise,' she said gaily. 'Why did you not bring some
of the girls with you?'

'I haven't seen them for ages, and Julia has a dance on to-night for
which she is saving herself. Besides, perhaps, I wanted to come quite
alone.'

'Yes?' she said in a voice faintly interrogatory. 'And you had to walk
from the station, too? If you had only wired in the morning, I could
have come or sent for you.'

'But, you see, I did not know in the morning I should be here to-day. It
is often the unexpected that happens. I came off on the impulse of the
moment. Are you glad to see me?'

It was a very direct question; but Gladys had now quite recovered
herself, and met it with a calm smile.

'Why, of course; how could I be otherwise? But, I say, you said a moment
ago you had not seen any of the girls for ages; it is only forty-eight
hours since we met in your aunt's drawing-room.'

'So it is,' he said innocently. 'I had quite forgotten, which shows how
time goes with me when you are out of town. Are you really going to bury
yourself here all winter?'

'I am going to live here, of course. It is my home, and I don't want any
other. A day in Glasgow once a week is quite enough for me.'

'Hard lines for Glasgow,' he said, tugging his moustache, and looking at
her with a good deal of real sentiment in his handsome eyes. She was
looking so sweet, he felt himself more in love than ever; and there was
a certain 'stand-offishness' in her manner which attracted him as much
as anything. He had not hitherto found such indifference a quality among
the young ladies of his acquaintance.

'I have just been writing to your Uncle Tom, telling him I want to spend
a great deal of money,' she began, rather to divert the conversation
than from any pressing desire for his opinion, 'and I don't feel at all
sure about what he will say. Your aunt does not approve, I know.'

'May I ask how you are going to spend it?' he inquired, with interest.

'Oh yes. I want to institute a Club for working girls in Glasgow, and a
holiday house for them here.'

'But there are any amount of such things in Glasgow already, and I
question if they do any good. I know my mother and Ju are always down on
them, and there's truth in what they say, too, that we are making a god
out of the working class. It is quite sickening what is done for them,
and how ungrateful they are.'

Gladys winced a little, and he perceived that he had spoken rather
strongly.

'I know the