It was a beautiful and touching thing to see the rare tenderness in the woman's plain face as she asked that question. 'Yes, I--I think so,' Gladys replied, but she got up suddenly from her seat, and her voice gave a suspicious tremor. 'Money can do a great deal, Mrs. Macintyre, but it cannot do everything--not everything.' 'Aweel, no. I dinna pray muckle,--there's no' muckle encouragement for sic releegious ordinances this airt,--but I whiles speir at the Lord no' to mak' siller a wecht for ye to cairry. Weel, are ye awa?' 'Yes; good-bye. When you come down to Bourhill, after I come back, we'll have long talks. I shall be so glad to have you there.' 'Aweel, wha wad hae thocht it? Ye'll no' rue'd, my doo, if I'm spared, that's a' the thanks I can gie. An' wull ye no' gang up by?' There was distinct anxiety in her repetition of the question. But Gladys, with averted head, hastened towards the door. 'Not to-day. Good-bye,' she said quickly; and, with a warm hand-shake, which anew convinced the honest woman that the girl in prosperity remained unchanged, she went her way. But instead of going back through the lane to Argyle 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.