’No; it’s aye best to keep dark.  I dinna mean onything ill, Teen, but naebody shall ever ken frae me whaur I’ve been or what I’ve suffered since I gaed awa’.  Ay, what I’ve suffered!’—­she repeated these words with a passionate intensity, which caused Teen to regard her with a kind of awe.  ‘But maybe my day’ll come, an’ if it does, I winna forget,’ she said, more to herself than to her companion; then, catching sight of Teen’s astonished face, she broke into a laugh, and said, in quite a different tone,—­

‘Weel, is’t the morn we’re gaun among the swells?  An’ hoo d’ye pit in the time in the country?’

‘Ye’ll see,’ replied Teen, with quiet satisfaction.  ’The days are ower short, that’s the only fault they hae.  Efter we get oor supper, what wad ye say to gang roond to Colquhoun Street and see Wat, to tell him we’re gaun to Bourhill?’

‘No, I’m no’ gaun.  He micht say we werena to gang.  I say, Teen, he’s in love wi’ her.  Onybody can see it in his e’e when he speaks aboot her.’

‘I ken that; but it’s nae use,’ said Teen, ’she’s gaun to mairry somebody else.’

‘Is she?  D’ye ken wha?’

‘Ay; your auld flame,’ said Teen, apparently at random, but all the while keenly watching her companion’s face.  She saw Liz become as pale as death, though she smiled a sickly smile, and tried to speak as indifferently as possible.

’Ye dinna mean it?  Weel, I’d hae thocht she wad hae waled better.  Hoo sune are we gaun the morn?’

She asked the question with eagerness, and from that moment the little seamstress observed that her whole manner changed.  She suddenly began to display a new and absorbing interest in the preparations for their departure, and plied Teen with questions regarding the place and her former experiences there.  The little seamstress, being a person of a remarkably shrewd and observant turn, saw in this awakened interest only another link in the chain which now appeared to her almost complete.  Her former elation over their trip to Bourhill gave place to a painful anxiety lest it should hasten events to a crisis in which the happiness of Gladys might be sadly involved; but it was now too late to help matters, and, with a bit of philosophical calmness, she said within herself, ‘What is to be maun be,’ and went on with her preparations for the morrow’s journey.

They set out, accordingly, about noon next day, carrying their belongings in the inevitable tin box, and arrived at Mauchline Station quite early in the afternoon—­a lovely afternoon, when all the spring airs were about, and a voice of gladness over the spring’s promise in the note of every bird singing on the bending boughs.  With what keenness of interest did the little seamstress watch the effect of country sights and sounds upon Liz, and how it pleased her to see the slow wonder gather in her eyes as they wandered across the wide landscape over the rich breadths of the ploughed fields,