t who could be so selfish as to be
sad when Nest was so supremely happy? She danced and sang more than
ever; and then sat silent, and smiled to herself: if spoken to, she
started and came back to the present with a scarlet blush, which told
what she had been thinking of.

That was a sunny, happy, enchanted autumn. But the winter was nigh at
hand; and with it came sorrow. One fine frosty morning, Nest went out
with her lover--she to the well, he to some farming business, which was
to be transacted at the little inn of Pen-Morfa. He was late for his
appointment; so he left her at the entrance of the village, and hastened
to the inn; and she, in her best cloak and new hat (put on against her
mother's advice; but they were a recent purchase, and very becoming),
went through the Dol Mawr, radiant with love and happiness. One who
lived until lately, met her going down toward the well, that morning;
and said he turned round to look after her, she seemed unusually lovely.
He wondered at the time at her wearing her Sunday clothes; for the
pretty, hooded blue-cloth cloak is kept among the Welsh women as a
church and market garment, and not commonly used even on the coldest
days of winter for such household errands as fetching water from the
well. However, as he said, "It was not possible to look in her face, and
'fault' any thing she wore." Down the sloping-stones the girl went
blithely with her pail. She filled it at the well; and then she took off
her hat, tied the strings together, and slung it over her arm; she
lifted the heavy pail and balanced it on her head. But alas! in going up
the smooth, slippery, treacherous rock, the encumbrance of her cloak--it
might be such a trifle as her slung hat--something at any rate, took
away her evenness of poise; the freshet had frozen on the slanting
stone, and was one coat of ice; poor Nest fell, and put out her hip. No
more flushing rosy color on that sweet face--no more look of beaming
innocent happiness;--instead, there was deadly pallor, and filmy eyes,
over which dark shades seemed to chase each other as the shoots of agony
grew more and more intense. She screamed once or twice; but the exertion
(involuntary, and forced out of her by excessive pain) overcame her, and
she fainted. A child coming an hour or so afterward on the same errand,
saw her lying there, ice-glued to the stone, and thought she was dead.
It flew crying back.

"Nest Gwynn is dead! Nest Gwynn is dead!" and, crazy