rally fulfilled, so I
kept silence. While she was speaking I was suddenly struck by a
thought that ought to have come before.

'Sinfi,' I said, 'didn't you know an English lady named Dalrymple,
who lodged with Mrs. Davies for some years?'

'Yis,' said Sinfi, 'and I did think o' her. She went to live at
Carnarvon. But supposin' that Winnie had gone to the English
lady--supposin' that she know'd where to find her--the lady 'ud
never ha' let her go away, she was so fond on her. It was Miss
Dalrymple as sp'ilt Winnie, a-givin' her lady-notions.'

However, I determined to see Miss Dalrymple, and started alone for
Carnarvon at once. By making inquiries at the Carnarvon post-office
I found Miss Dalrymple, a pale-faced, careworn lady of extraordinary
culture, who evinced the greatest affection for Winifred. She had
seen nothing of her, and was much distressed at the fragments of
Winifred's story which I thought it well to give her. When she bade
me good-bye, she said, 'I know something of your family. I know your
mother and aunt. The sweet girl you are seeking is in my judgment one
of the most gifted young women living. Her education, as you may be
aware, she owes mainly to me. But she took to every kind of
intellectual pursuit by instinct. Reared in a poor Welsh cottage as
she was, there is, I believe, almost no place in society that she is
not fitted to fill.'

On leaving Carnarvon I returned to Sinfi Lovell.

But why should I weary the reader by a detailed account of my
wanderings and searchings with my strange guide that day, and the
next, and the next? Why should I burthen him with the mental agonies
I suffered as Sinfi and I, during the following days, explored the
country for miles and miles--right away beyond the Cross Foxes, as
far as Dolgelley and the region of Cader Idris? At last, one evening,
when I and Rhona Boswell and some of her family were walking down
Snowdon towards Llanberis, Sinfi announced her conviction that
Winifred was no longer in the Snowdon region at all, perhaps not even
in Wales at all.

'You mean, I suppose, that she is dead,' I said.

'Dead?' said Sinfi, the mysterious sibylline look returning
immediately to her face, that had just seemed so frank and simple.
'She ain't got to _die_; she's only got to beg. But I shall ha' to
leave you now. I can't do you no more good. And besides, my daddy's
goin' into the Eastern Counties with the Welsh ponies, and so is
Jasper Bozzell and Rhona. Vide