‘There was a lad asked me yince,’ answered Teen, ’but he was only seventeen—­a prentice in Tennant’s, wi’ aicht shillin’s a week.  I’ve never had a richt offer.’

‘Then what do you mean by saying you have had two or three lovers?’ queried Gladys, in wonder.

‘Oh, weel, I’ve keepit company wi’ a lot.  They’ve walkit me oot, an’ ta’en me to the balls an’ that—­that’s what I mean.’

Gladys was rather disappointed, perceiving that it was not likely she would get much help from the experience of Teen.

’I think that is rather strange, but perhaps it is quite right, and it is only I who am strange.  But, tell me, do you think a girl always can know just at once whether she cares enough for a man to marry him?’

‘I dinna ken; there’s different kinds o’ mairriages,’ said Teen philosophically.  ’I dinna think there’s onything in real life like the love in “Lord Bellew’s Bride,” unless among the gentry.’

‘Do you really think not?’ asked Gladys, with a slight wistfulness.  ’I have not read “Lord Bellew,” of course, but I do believe there is that kind of love which would give up all, and dare and suffer anything.  I should not like to marry without it.’

‘Dinna, then,’ replied Teen quite coolly.  Nevertheless, as she looked at the sweet face rendered so grave and earnest by the intensity of her thought, her eye became more and more troubled.

‘Among oor kind o’ folk there’s a’ kind o’ mairriages,’ she began.  ’Some lassies mairry thinkin’ they’ll hae an easier time an’ a man to work for them, an’ they sometimes fin’ oot they’ve only ta’en somebody to keep; some mairry for spite, an’ some because they’d raither dee than be auld maids.  I dinna think, mysel’, love—­if there be sic a thing—­has ony thing to do wi’t.’

It was rather a cynical doctrine, but Teen implicitly believed what she was saying.

‘Are you thinkin’ on mairryin’?’ she asked then; and, without waiting for an answer, continued in rather a hurried, troubled way, ’I wadna if I were you—­at least, for a while.  Wait or ye see what turns up.  Ye’ll never be better than ye are, an’ men are jist men.  I wadna gie a brass fardin’ for the best o’ them.’

Gladys did not resent this plain expression of opinion, because she perceived that a genuine kindliness prompted it.

‘I am quite sure I shall not marry for a very long time,’ Gladys replied; then they fell to talking over the other subject, which was so interesting to them both.

Underneath all her cynical philosophy there was real kindness as well as shrewd common-sense in the little seamstress.  She was in some respects one of the best advisers Gladys could possibly have taken into her confidence.

These sweet, restful days were a benediction to the weary, half-starved heart of the city girl, and under their benign influence she became a different creature.  Little Miss Peck, who adored Gladys, sometimes observed, with a smile of approval, the grateful, pathetic look in Teen’s large solemn eyes when they followed the sweet young creature who had shown her a glimpse of the sunny side of life.  It was not a glimpse, however, which Gladys intended to be merely transient.  She had in view a scheme which was to be of permanent value to the poor little seamstress.