Next day Gladys had to rise quite early--before six--and with her own
hands light the fire, under the old man's superintendence, thus
receiving her first lesson in the economy of firelighting. She was very
patient, and learned her lesson very well. While she was brushing in the
hearth she heard another foot on the passage, and was further astonished
by the tones of a woman's voice giving utterance to surprise.

'Mercy on us! wha's he gotten noo?'

The words, uttered in the broadest Scotch, and further graced by the
unlovely Glasgow accent, fell on the girl's ears like the sound of a
foreign tongue. She paused, broom in hand, and looked in rather a
bewildered manner at the short stout figure standing in the doorway,
with bare red arms akimbo, and the broadest grin on her coarse but not
unkindly face.

'I beg your pardon, what is it?' Gladys asked kindly, and the surprise
deepened on the Scotchwoman's face.

'Ye'll be his niece, mebbe--his brither's lass, are ye, eh? And hae ye
come to bide? If ye hiv, Almichty help ye!'

Gladys shook her head, not understanding yet a single word. At this
awkward juncture the old man came hurrying along the passage, and Mrs.
Macintyre turned to him with a little curtsey.

'I'm speakin' to the young leddy, but she seemin'ly doesna understand. I
see my work's dune; mebbe I'm no' to come back?'

'No; my niece can do the little that is necessary, so you needn't come