The Guinea Stamp: A Tale of Modern Glasgow

'Your own living? I am glad to hear you put it so sensibly. I must say I hardly expected it,' said the old man, with engaging frankness. 'Well, but tell me first what your name...

That was a sad night for Gladys Graham and for Walter. Feeling that she required the help and presence of a woman, Walter ran up for the kind-hearted Mrs. Macintyre, whom Gladys...

He held out his hand. His face was pale, but his mouth was set like iron, and these apparently indifferent words seemed to force themselves from between his teeth. Sign of emoti...

'Not yet; but I opened my window and put my head out, and the air was quite mild. A spring morning, Uncle Abel, the first we have had this year.'

George Fordyce was listening to a maternal lecture the morning after a dance, at which he had been distributing his attentions very freely among the most attractive of the young...

Now Gladys had her opportunity of seeing the beautiful side of life. Her taste being naturally refined and fastidious, found a peculiar satisfaction in the beauty of her surroun...

It was an uneventful year. Spring succeeded the fogs and frosts of winter, sunny skies and warmer airs came again, bringing comfort to those who could buy artificial heat, so ma...

It was an artist's studio, a poor, shabby little place, with a latticed window facing the north. There was nothing in the furnishing or arrangement of the room to suggest succes...

'Why, yes, I will, so far as I can,' answered the lawyer, without hesitation. 'She will not lack friends, you may rest assured. This,' he added, tapping the blue paper, 'will en...

Miss Caroline Peck had received that very morning a letter from Mrs. Fordyce of Bellairs Crescent--a letter which had put her all in a flutter. It was a letter of warning, couns...

'Ye arena weel, Liz,' she said brusquely. 'It's the stair; ye never could gang up a stair, I mind, withoot bein' oot o' breath. Never mind; the kettle's bilin', an' ye'll hae ye...

'Oh, she's well enough, I think. I never asks. Oor kind gangs on till they drap, an' then they maistly dee,' said Liz cheerfully. 'But Teen will hing on a while yet--she's tough...

Sunday was a dreary day. It rained again, and the fog was so thick that it seemed dim twilight all day long in Gladys's new home. Her uncle did not go out at all, but dozed in t...

Gladys sat down, and suddenly became conscious of what she was carrying, a little flower-pot, in which bloomed a handful of Roman hyacinths, their delicate and lovely blossoms n...

In the night Gladys was awakened by her uncle's voice sharply calling her name, and when she hastened to him she found him in great pain, and breathing with the utmost difficult...

'All the better if you don't,' he answered harshly. 'She's run away, anyhow, and it's their blame. Then they come to me, after the mischief's done, thinking I can make it right....

The last days of April came, the family in Bellairs Crescent were making preparations for an immediate departure to the Ayrshire coast, and as yet Gladys had not seen or heard a...

Summer seemed no longer to smile upon Bourhill. That sunny evening was the last for many days. A wild, chill, wintry blast ushered in September, if the Lammas spates had tarried...

Gladys was writing a long letter to her guardian, setting forth in eloquent terms what she wished to do for the working girls of the East End, and asking him for some sympathy a...

'Well, my dear, I suppose he does not come up because he wishes to have you a little while to himself,' said Mrs. Fordyce, with a smile, 'and I must say I quite sympathise with...

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 neighbourho...

The second summer of Gladys Graham's changed life was less happy than the first. Her young enthusiasm had received many chills, and somehow the wealth with which she had anticip...

All this time nothing had been heard of Liz. She was no longer known in her old haunts--was almost forgotten, indeed, save by one or two. Among those who remained faithful to he...

It was half-past ten before Walter alighted from the train at St. Enoch's Station. It was a fine dry evening, with a sufficient touch of frost in the air to make walking pleasan...

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 pro...

While these golden days were speeding by the sea, Bourhill was being put in order for its young mistress. Her interest in the alterations was very keen; there were very few days...

Never did mother watch more tenderly over a wayward child than the little seamstress over Liz, and though Liz was quite conscious of the espionage she did not resent it. She see...

Gladys returned to her own home that night, and when she again left it it was in altered and happy circumstances. Those who loved her so dearly watched over her the next days wi...

In the cheerful sunshine, the following afternoon, a small funeral party left the house in Colquhoun Street, and drove to the railway station. It consisted of Mr. Fordyce the la...

The little seamstress had never been out of Glasgow in her life. Even the Fair holidays, signal for an almost universal exodus 'doon the water,' brought no emancipation for her....

Towards the end of the second week Liz began to exhibit certain signs of restlessness, which ought to have warned those concerned in her welfare that the quiet and seclusion of...

'Your Aunt Isabel was here this afternoon, George,' said Mrs. Fordyce to her son, when he came home from the mill that evening. 'She came over to tell me Gladys is in town. I sa...

'Shut up, you twa,' said a querulous, peevish voice from the ingle-neuk, where the mother, dull-eyed, depressed, and untidy, sat with her elbows on her knees. She was in a poor...

She neither spoke to nor looked at Walter, but passed out into the open square before the Cathedral, and down the old High Street, with a steady, purposeful step. The rain had c...

All the eagerness died out of Walter's face, and he turned away immediately as if to leave the room. But Gladys prevented him; her face still red with the hot flush his passiona...

From that day a change was observed in Gladys Graham. It was as if she had suddenly awakened from a dream, to find herself surrounded by the realities of life. Her listlessness...

hallowed. She wondered vaguely once or twice whether it would be her last farewell, or whether, in other and happier years, she might come again to kneel by that nameless grave....

'Now, my dear,' said Mrs. Fordyce, as they were about to part, 'I shall allow the girls to come down on Saturday, on condition that you return with them at the end of a week, pr...

It did not occur to Gladys to give her guest quarters at the lodge beside Mrs. Macintyre, where, it might have been thought, she would be more at home. Having invited her to Bou...

'It was no mistake, because she looked into our carriage, and I saw her quite plainly. Besides, do you think that any one who has seen Liz once would ever forget her face? I hav...

The interview with Gladys upset Walter for the day. When she was gone, he found it impossible to fix his attention on his books or any of the details of his business. He could n...

'I've disgraced ye enough,' she answered, a trifle sharply. 'Ye dinna ken what ye are daein', my man, askin' me to come an' bide wi' you. I've mair respect for ye than ye hae fo...

The fleeting vision of Liz Hepburn's familiar face appeared to fill Gladys with excitement and unrest. As Mina looked at her flushed cheeks and shining eyes, she felt a vague un...

Mrs. Macintyre and the redoubtable 'Tammy'--a very round and chubby urchin, as unlike a denizen of the slums as could well be imagined--were sitting at tea by the cosy hearth, a...

It was some days before Gladys could summon courage to write to Walter about his sister. Had she known the consequences of that delay she would have been profoundly unhappy; it...

'George hasn't been down either, Julia told me yesterday,' said Mrs. Fordyce thoughtfully. 'There must have been a quarrel, girls. Did Gladys say anything more before she went a...

Next day at noon that strangely-assorted pair, the sordid old man and the gentle child, set out in a peasant's waggon, which he had hired for a few pence, to ride across the mea...