The Guinea Stamp | Page 7

looked distinctly annoyed at this unexpected statement
regarding his worldly affairs.
'Your father, Mary, was as ignorant of the practical affairs of life as an
unborn babe. He never showed his ignorance more than when he told
you that fabrication--a pure fabrication of his fancy. I have a little trade
in the oil and tallow line. No, not a shop, only a little warehouse in a
back street in Glasgow. When you see it you will wonder how it has
ever kept body and soul together. A splendid business! Ha! ha! That is
good!'
'And do you live near it, Uncle Abel?'
'I live at it--in it, in fact; my house is in the warehouse. It's not a very
genteel locality, nor a fine house, it is good enough for me; but I warn
you not to expect anything great, and I can't alter my way of life for
you.'
'I hope I should never expect it,' answered Gladys quietly. 'And you
live there quite alone?'
'Not quite. There is Walter Hepburn.'

'Who is Walter Hepburn?' asked Gladys, and the Scotch name fell most
musically from her lips for the first time, the name which was one day
to be the dearest to her on earth.
'He's the office boy--an imp of the devil he is; but he is sharp and clever
as a needle; and then he is cheap.'
'Are cheap things always good, Uncle Abel?' Gladys asked. 'I have
heard papa say that cheap things are so often nasty, and he has spoken
to me more than once of the sin of cheapness. Even genius must be
bought and sold cheaply. Oh, he felt it all so bitterly.'
'Mary Graham, your foolish father was his own worst enemy, and I
doubt he will prove yours too, if that is all he has taught you. You had
better get tea at once.'
Thus rebuked, Gladys retired to the kitchen, and, to the no small
concern of the little landlady, she sat down on the low window-seat,
folded her hands on the table, and began helplessly to weep.
'My dear, my dear, don't cry! He hasn't been good to you, I know he
hasn't. But never mind; better times will soon dawn for you, and he will
not stay. I hope he will go away this very night,' she said very
sympathetically.
'No, he will stay till to-morrow, then I must go with him. He has
offered me a home, and I must go. There is nothing else I can do just
now,' said Gladys. 'I can't believe, Miss Peck, that he is papa's brother.
It is impossible.'
'Dear Miss Gladys, there is often the greatest difference in families. I
have seen it myself,' said Miss Peck meditatively. 'But now you must
have something to eat, and I suppose he must be hungry too'--
'If you would get tea, please, we should be much obliged; and oh, Miss
Peck, do you think you could give him a bed?'
'There is nothing but the little attic, but I daresay it will do him very

well. He doesn't look as if he were accustomed to anything much
better,' said Miss Peck, with frank candour. So it was arranged, and
Gladys, drying her eyes, offered to help the little woman as best she
could.
Abel Graham looked keenly and critically at his niece when she
returned to the room and laid the cloth for tea. His eye was not trained
to the admiration or appreciation of beauty, but he was struck by a
singular grace in her every movement, by a certain still and winning
loveliness of feature and expression. It was not the beauty sought for or
beloved by the vulgar eye, to which it would seem but a colourless and
lifeless thing; but a pure soul, to which all things seemed lovely and of
good report, looked out from her grave eyes, and gave an expression of
gentle sweetness to her lips. With such a fair and delicate creature,
what should he do? The question suggested itself to him naturally, as a
picture of his home rose up before his vision. When he thought of its
meagre comfort, its ugly environment, he confessed that in it she would
be quite out of place. The house in which he had found her, though
only a hired shelter, was neat and comfortable and home-like. He felt
irritated, perplexed; and this irritation and perplexity made him quite
silent during the meal. They ate, indeed, without exchanging a single
word, though the old man enjoyed the fragrant tea, the sweet,
home-made bread, and firm, wholesome butter, and ate of it without
stint. He was not, indeed, accustomed to such dainty fare. Gladys
attended quietly to his wants, and he did not notice that she scarcely
broke bread.