’My dear, the world never does approve of anything done out of the conventional way,’ said Miss Peck, with a quiet touch of bitterness.  ’I think you have a very noble aim, and the heart of an angel; only there will be mountains of difficulty in the way.’

‘We must overcome them,’ answered Gladys quickly.

’And you will meet with much discouragement, and a great deal of ingratitude,’ pursued the little spinster, hating herself for her discouraging words, but convinced that it was her duty to prepare her dear charge for the worst.

‘Not more than I can bear,’ Gladys answered.  ’And I am quite sure that, with all these drawbacks, I shall also receive many bright, encouraging things to help me on.’

‘Yes, my dear, you will.  God will reward you in His own best way,’ said Miss Peck, with tears in her eyes.

Gladys sat late by the fire that night, pondering her new scheme, and developing its details with great rapidity.  She found the greatest comfort and pleasure in such planning; for, though she was the envied of many, there were times, though unconfessed, when she was weighed down by her own loneliness, when a sense of desolation, as keen as any she had ever experienced in Colquhoun Street, made all the lovelier things of life seem of no account.

Next morning Gladys drove her guest into Troon, and at sight of the great sea, its breast troubled with wintry storms, tossing and rolling in wildest unrest, Teen appeared for the first time really moved.

‘It’s fearsome,’ she said in an awe-stricken whisper,—­’fearsome!  Michty me, look at the waves!  It’s fearsome to look at.’

‘How odd that it should strike you so!’ exclaimed Gladys.  ’It always rests and soothes me; the wilder it is, the deeper the quiet it infuses into my soul.  See the tall shadow yonder through the mists, the mountains of Arran; and that is Ayr, across Prestwick Bay; and these rocks jutting out into the sea, the Heads of Ayr.  Do you see that house with the flagstaff, at the top of the Links?  It is Mr. Fordyce’s house, The Anchorage, where I lived all summer.  It is splendid here to-day.  Stand still, Firefly, you impatient animal; we are not ready to go yet.’

‘I wad be feared to live in that hoose,’ said Teen.  ’The waves micht come up in the nicht an’ wash it away.  Jist look at that yin the noo.’

A great green wave, with its angry crest of foam, came rolling in with apparently resistless force, and spent itself on the pebbly shore with a sullen roar.

‘"Thus far shalt thou come, and no farther,"’ said Gladys, with a faint smile, and a momentary uplifting of her eyes to the grey wintry sky.  ‘"He holdeth the sea in the hollow of His hand."’

‘Some day, when it is very fine, I shall take you to Ayr,’ said Gladys, as she turned the pony’s head.  ’I have often thought how I should like to bring Liz here.  I cannot tell you how I feel about her; I think about her almost continually.’