Mrs. Fordyce was a kind-hearted woman, and did a great many good deeds, though on strictly conventional lines. She was the clever organiser of Church charities, the capable head of the Ladies' Provident and Dorcas Society, to which she grudged neither time nor money; but she did not believe in personal contact with the very poor, nor in the power or efficacy of individual sympathy and effort. She thought a great deal about Gladys that day, pondering and puzzling over her action--a trifle nettled, if it must be told, at the calm, quiet manner in which her disapproval had been ignored. Gladys was indeed proving herself a very capable and independent mistress of Bourhill. Meanwhile the two girls, whom fortune had so differently favoured, journeyed together into Ayrshire. A strange shyness seemed to have taken possession of Teen; she sat bolt upright in the corner of the carriage, clutching her tin box, and looking half-scared, half-defiant; even the red feather in her hat seemed to wear an aggressive air. In her soul she fervently rued the step she had taken, and thought with longing of her own little room, and with affectionate regret of the bundle she had so proudly returned to Mrs. Galbraith. 'What are you thinking of, Teen? You don't look at all happy,' said Gladys, growing a trifle embarrassed by the continued silence. 'I'm no'; I wish I hadna come,' was the flat reply, which made the sensitive colour rise in the fair cheek of Gladys. 'Oh no, you don't; you are only shy. Wait till you have seen Bourhill; you will think it the loveliest place in the world,' she said cheerfully. 'Maybe,' answered Teen doubtfully. 'I feel gey queer the noo, onyhoo.' This was not encouraging. Gladys became silent also, and both felt relieved when the train stopped at Mauchline Station. The girl, whose only idea of the country was her acquaintance with the straight, conventional arrangement of city parks and gardens, looked about her with genuine wonder. 'My,' she said, as they crossed over the little footbridge at the station, 'sic a room folk have here! Are there nae hooses ava?' 'Oh, lots,' replied Gladys quite gaily, relieved to see even a faint interest exhibited by her guest. 'We shall drive through Mauchline presently; it is such a pretty, quaint little town.' A very dainty little phaeton, in charge of an exceedingly smart young groom, waited at the station gate for Miss Graham. Teen regarded it and her with open-mouthed amazement. Again it seemed impossible that this gracious, self-possessed lady, giving her orders so calmly, and according so well in every respect with her changed fortunes, could be the same girl who accompanied Liz and herself to the Ariel Music Hall not much more than a year ago. 'My,' she said again, when Gladys took the reins and the pony started off, 'it's grand, but queer.'