takes me all my time to read words of three or four letters?'

'Oh, how dreadful! I can read; I'll teach you,' she cried at once.
'Perhaps it would do till you can go to school.'

'Could you? Would you?'

The boy's whole face shone, his eyes glowed with the light of awakened
hope. He felt his own power, believed that he could achieve something if
the first great stumbling-block were removed. Something of his gladness
communicated itself to Gladys--showed itself in the heightened, delicate
colour in her cheek, in the lustre of her eyes. So these two desolate
creatures made their first compact, binding about them in the very hour
of their meeting the links of the chain which, in the years to come,
love would make a chain of gold.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER V.

LIZ.


Abel Graham's business was really that of a wholesale drysalter in a
very small way. His customers were chiefly found among the small
shopkeepers who abounded in the neighbourhood, and as he gave credit for
a satisfactory time, he was much patronised. To give credit to a certain