arance had matched the only destiny she could look for--grey,
meagre, commonplace, hopeless as a dull November day.

'Your pecker's no' up, Wat?' she said, looking at him rather keenly.
'What are ye sae doon i' the mooth for?'

Walter made no reply. Truth to tell, he would have found it difficult to
give expression to his thoughts.

'He's aye doon i' the mooth when he comes here, Liz,' said the mother,
with a passing touch of spirit. 'We're ower puir folk for my lord noo
that he's gettin' among the gentry.'

'The gentry of Argyle Street an' the Sautmarket, mother?' asked Walter
dryly. 'They'll no' do much for ye.'

'Is Skinny no' gaun to raise yer screw, Wat?' asked Liz. 'It's high time
he was thinkin' on't.'

'I'll ask him one o' these days, but he might as well keep the money as
me. This is a bottomless pit,' he said, with bitterness. 'It could
swallow a pound as quick as five shillings, an' never be kent.'

'Ye're richt, Wat; but I wad advise ye to stick in to Skinny. He has
siller, they say, an' maybe ye'll finger it some day.'

One night not long after, Liz presented herself at the house in
Colquhoun Street, to return the visit of Gladys. As it happened, Walter
was not in, having heard of a night school where the fees were so small
as to be within the range of his means. Gladys looked genuinely pleased
to see her visitor, though she hardly recognised in the
fashionably-dressed young lady the melancholy-looking girl she had seen
lying on the kitchen bed in the house of the Hepburns.

'Daur I come in? Would he no' be mad?' asked Liz, when they shook hands
at the outer door.

'Do you mean my uncle?' asked Gladys. 'He will be quite pleased to see
you. Come in; it is so cold here.'

'For you, ay; but I'm as warm's a pie, see, wi' my new fur cape--four
an' elevenpence three-farthings at the Polytechnic. Isn't it a beauty,
an' dirt cheap?'

Thus talking glibly about what was more interesting to her than anything
else in the world, Liz followed Gladys into the kitchen, where the old
man sat, as usual, in his arm-chair by the fireside, looking very old
and wizened and frail in the flickering glow of fire and candle light.

'This is Walter's sister, Uncle Abel,' Gladys said, with that
unconscious dignity which singled her out at once, and gave her a touch
of individuality which Liz felt, though she did not in the least
understand it.

The old man gave a little grunt, and bade her sit down; but, though not
t