The boy’s whole face shone, his eyes glowed with the light of awakened hope.  He felt his own power, believed that he could achieve something if the first great stumbling-block were removed.  Something of his gladness communicated itself to Gladys—­showed itself in the heightened, delicate colour in her cheek, in the lustre of her eyes.  So these two desolate creatures made their first compact, binding about them in the very hour of their meeting the links of the chain which, in the years to come, love would make a chain of gold.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER V.

LIZ.

Abel Graham’s business was really that of a wholesale drysalter in a very small way.  His customers were chiefly found among the small shopkeepers who abounded in the neighbourhood, and as he gave credit for a satisfactory time, he was much patronised.  To give credit to a certain amount was the miser’s policy.  When he once got the unhappy debtors in his toils it was hopeless to extricate themselves, and so they continued paying, as they were able, high prices and exorbitant interest, which left them no chance of making any profit in their own humble sphere.  He had also lent a great deal of money, his income from that source alone being more than sufficient to keep himself and his niece in modest comfort, had he so willed.  But the lust of gold possessed him.  It was nothing short of physical pain for him to part with it, and he had no intention of changing his way of life for her.  He was known in the district under the elegant sobriquet of Skinny Graham; and when Gladys heard it for the first time, she laughed silently to herself, thinking of its fitness.  The simple-hearted child quickly accommodated herself to her surroundings, accepting her meagre lot with a serenity a more experienced mind might have envied.  She even managed to make a little atmosphere of brightness about her, which at once communicated itself to the two who shared it with her.  They viewed this exquisite change, it may be believed, from an entirely different standpoint.  The old man liked the comfort and the cleanliness which the girl’s busy hands made in their humble home; the boy looked on with deep eyes, wonderingly, catching glimpses of her white soul, and knowing that it was far above and beyond the sordid air it breathed.  She went out a great deal, wandering alone and fearlessly in the streets—­always in the streets, because as yet she did not know that even in that great city, where the roar and the din of life are never still, and the air but seldom clear from the smoke of its bustle, are to be found quiet resting-places, where the green things of God grow in hope and beauty, giving their message of perpetual promise to the heart open to receive it.  Gladys would have welcomed that message gladly, ear and heart having been early taught to wait and listen for it, but as yet she believed Glasgow to be but a city of