Breathless and panting, the little seamstress returned with the cookies, and made a little spread on the bare table.  Gladys was not hungry, but she accepted the proffered hospitality frankly as it was given, though the tea tasted like a decoction of bitter aloes.  She was horrified to behold the little seamstress swallowing it in great mouthfuls without sugar or cream.  Gladys had sometimes been hungry, but she knew nothing of that painful physical sinking, the result of exhausting work and continued insufficiency of food, which the poisonous brew for the time being overcame.  Over the tea the trio waxed quite talkative, and ’Lord Bellew’s Bride’ was discussed to its minutest detail.  Gladys wondered at the familiarity of the two girls with dukes and duchesses, and other persons of high degree, of whom they spoke familiarly, as if they were next-door neighbours.  Although she was very young, and knew nothing of their life, she gathered that its monotony was very irksome to them, and that they were compelled to seek something, if only in the pages of an unwholesome and unreal story, to lift them out of it.  It was evident that Liz, at least, chafed intolerably under her present lot, and that her head was full of dreams and imaginings regarding the splendours so vividly described in the story.  All this time Gladys also wondered more than once what had become of the parents, of whom there was no sign visible, and at last she ventured to put the question—­

‘Is your mother not at home to-day?’

This question sent the little seamstress off into a fit of silent laughter, which brought a dull touch of colour into her cheeks, and very much improved her appearance.  Liz also gave a little short laugh, which had no mirth in it.

‘No, she’s no’ at hame; she’s payin’ a visit at Duke Street.’  And the little grave nod with which Gladys received this information further intensified the amusement of the two.

‘Ye dinna see through it,’ said Liz, ’so I’ll gie ye’d flat.  My faither and mither are in the gaol for fechtin’.  They were nailed on Saturday nicht.’

‘Oh!’

Gladys looked genuinely distressed, and perhaps for the first time Liz thought of another side such degradation might have.  She had often been angry, had felt it keenly in her own passionate way, but it was always a selfish anger, which had not in it a single touch of compassion for the miserable pair who had so far forgotten their duty to each other and to God.

‘Gey bad, ye think, I see,’ said Liz soberly.  ’We’re used to it, and dinna fash oor thoombs.  She’ll be hame the nicht; but he’s gotten thirty days, an’ we’ll hae a wee peace or he comes oot.’

Gladys looked at the indifferent face of Liz with a vague wonder in her own.  That straight, direct glance, which had such sorrow in it, disconcerted Liz considerably, and she again turned to the pages of ‘Lord Bellew.’

‘Don’t you get rather tired of that work?’ asked Gladys, looking with extreme compassion on the little seamstress, who was again hard at work.