And no one saw that tender, touching little act except a grimy sparrow on the leads, and he flew off with a loud chirp, and, joining a neighbour on the old stunted tree, made so much noise that it was just possible he was delivering his opinion of the whole matter.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXI.

ACROSS THE CHANNEL.

For the first time in her life Gladys tasted the novelty of foreign travel.  It was quite a lady’s party, consisting of Mrs. Fordyce and her daughters, though Mr. Fordyce had promised to join them somewhere abroad, especially if they remained too long away; also, there were vague promises on the part of the Pollokshields cousins to meet them in Paris, after the main object of their visit to Belgium was accomplished.

They stayed a week in London—­not the London Gladys remembered as in a shadowy dream.  The luxurious life of a first-rate hotel had nothing in it to remind her of the poor, shabby lodging on the Surrey side of the river, which was her early and only recollection of the great city.  At the end of a week they crossed from Dover to Ostend, and in the warm, golden light of a lovely autumn evening arrived in quaint, old-world, sleepy Bruges.  Madame Bonnemain herself met them at the station, a bright-eyed, red-cheeked, happy-faced little woman, on whom the care and the worry of life appeared to have sat but lightly during all these hard years.  She was visibly affected at meeting with her old school-friend.

’Why, Henrietta, you are not one bit changed; you actually look younger than ever,’ exclaimed Mrs. Fordyce, when the first agitation, of the meeting was over.  ’Positively, you look as young as you did in Brussels eight-and-twenty years ago.  Just look at me.  Yes, these are my daughters; and this is Gladys Graham, whom I am so anxious to see under your care.’

The bright, sharp eyes of Madame Bonnemain took in the three girls at one comprehensive glance, then she shook her head with a half-arch, half-regretful smile.

’A year ago such a prospect would have seemed to lift me to paradise.  Times have been hard with me, Isabel—­never harder than last year; but it is always the darkest hour before the dawn, as we used to say in Brussels, when the days seemed interminably awful just before vacation.  Two carriages we must have for so many women.  Ah, I am so glad my house is quite, quite empty.’

Beckoning to the drivers of two rather rickety old carriages, somewhat resembling in form the old English chaise, she put all the girls in one, and seated herself beside Mrs. Fordyce in the other.

’Now we can talk.  The children will be happier without us.  How good, how very good, it is to see you again, Isabel, and how my heart warms to you even yet.’

’It was your own fault, Henrietta, that we did not meet oftener.  You have always refused my invitations—­sometimes without much ceremony,’ said Mrs. Fordyce rather reproachfully.