ont door, and in a glow of excitement
walked back to Castell On. His arm was getting more painful, so on his
way through the town he called on Dr. Hughes, who was considered "the
people's" doctor, while Dr. Jones was more patronised by "the gentry."

CHAPTER VIII

GARTHOWEN SLOPES

Dr. Jones's visits to Nantmyny were very frequent during the following
week, for Gwenda's foot had been rather severely crushed, and the pain
was acute; but being a girl of great spirit she bore it patiently,
though it entailed many long hours of wearisome confinement to the
house and sofa. During these hours of enforced idleness, she indulged
in frequent "brown studies," for her firm and decided character was
curiously tinged with romance. She had received but a desultory
education; her uncle, though providing her amply with all the means of
learning, yet chafed continually against the application which was
necessary for her profiting by them.

"Come out, child," he would call, standing outside the open window, his
jovial face broadening into a smile of blandishment, most aggravating
to Miss Howells, who, inside the window, was trying to fix her pupil's
attention upon some subject of history or grammar. The rustling of the
brown leaves and the whispering of the wind in the trees added their
own enticements, which required all Gwenda's firmness to resist.

"No, uncle," she would say, shaking her finger at him. "Yesterday and
Monday you made me neglect my studies. You mustn't come again this
week to tempt me out. I have promised Miss Howells to be industrious.
It will soon be four o'clock, and then I will come."

And her uncle had perforce to be content, for at Nantmyny there was no
doubt that Gwenda "ruled the roost." Somehow she emerged from the
stage of girlhood with a fair amount of knowledge, although her
mother's sisters, the two Miss Gwynnes of Pentre, were much
dissatisfied with her want of what they called "polish."

"She'll never make a good match," they were wont to say, "never! That
plain outspokenness is all very well in a man, or even in an old woman,
but it's very unbecoming in a girl, and I'm sure it will ruin her
prospects." And on the subject of her "prospects" they were accustomed
to dilate so continually and so earnestly that Gwenda had a shrinking
dislike to the word, as well as to the subject to which it referred.

"We must really speak to her again, Maria, for of course George may
marry some day,