e that evening Gladys caught her looking at her
with a glance so penetrating and so anxious that it impressed her with a
sort of uneasiness. She did not feel particularly happy herself. Now
that her lover had gone, and that the subtle charm of his personality
and presence was only a memory, she half regretted what had happened
that afternoon. She felt almost as if she had committed herself, and she
was surprised that she should secretly chafe over it.

'Teen,' she said quite suddenly, when they were sitting alone at the
library fire after supper, when Miss Peck had gone to give her
housekeeping orders for the morning, 'had you ever a lover?'

This extraordinary and unexpected question drove the blood into the
colourless face of Teen, and she could not for the moment answer.

'Well, yes,' she said at length, with a faint, queer smile. 'Maybe I've
had twa-three o' a kind.'

'Two or three?' echoed Gladys in a surprised and rather disapproving
voice. 'That is very odd. But, tell me, have you ever seen anybody who
wished to marry you, and whom you wished to marry?'

'There was a lad asked me yince,' answered Teen, 'but he was only
seventeen--a prentice in Tennant's, wi' aicht shillin's a week. I've
never had a richt offer.'

'Then what do you mean by saying you have had two or three lovers?'
queried Gladys, in wonder.

'Oh, weel, I've keepit company wi' a lot. They've walkit me oot, an'
ta'en me to the balls an' that--that's what I mean.'

Gladys was rather disappointed, perceiving that it was not likely she
would get much help from the experience of Teen.

'I think that is rather strange, but perhaps it is quite right, and it
is only I who am strange. But, tell me, do you think a girl always can
know just at once whether she cares enough for a man to marry him?'

'I dinna ken; there's different kinds o' mairriages,' said Teen
philosophically. 'I dinna think there's onything in real life like the
love in "Lord Bellew's Bride," unless among the gentry.'

'Do you really think not?' asked Gladys, with a slight wistfulness. 'I
have not read "Lord Bellew," of course, but I do believe there is that
kind of love which would give up all, and dare and suffer anything. I
should not like to marry without it.'

'Dinna, then,' replied Teen quite coolly. Nevertheless, as she looked at
the sweet face rendered so grave and earnest by the intensity of her
thought, her eye became more and more troubled.

'Among oor kind o' folk