smooth. Come here, Ann," the
old man called, as his daughter passed busily backwards and forwards
spreading the snowy cloth and laying the tea-table. "The lady can
speak Welsh!"

"Oh! well indeed, I am glad," said Ann; "Will is the only one of us who
speaks English quite easily."

"Oh! there's Gwilym," said her father.

"Yes, Gwilym speaks it quite correctly," said Ann, with pride, "but he
has a Welsh accent, which Will has not--from a little boy he studied
the English, and to speak it like the English."

"Will is evidently their centre of interest," thought Gwenda, "and how
little he seems to think of them!"

Here the little curly pate came nestling against her knee.

"Hello! rascal!" said the old man, "don't pull the lady's skirts like
that."

But Gwenda took the child on her lap.

"He is a lovely boy," she said, thus securing Ann's good opinion at
once.

The little arms wound round her neck, and before tea was over she had
won her way into all their hearts.

"I am sorry my sons are not here," said the old man; "they are good
boys, both of them, and would like to speak to such a beautiful young
lady."

"Have you two sons, then?" asked Gwenda.

"Yes, yes. Will, my second son, is a clergyman. He is curate of
Llansidan, 'tis about forty miles from here; but Gethin, my eldest son,
is a sailor; indeed, I don't know where he is now, but I am longing for
him to come home, whatever; and Will does not come often to see me. He
is too busy, I suppose, and 'tis very far."

And Gwenda, sensitive and tender, heard a tremble in the old man's
voice, and detected the pain and bitterness of his speech.

"Young men," she said, "are so often taken up with their work at first,
that they forget their old home, but they generally come back to it,
and draw towards it as they grow older; for after all, there is nothing
like the old home, and I should think this must have been a nest of
comfort indeed."

"Well, I don't know. My two sons are gone over the nest, whatever; but
Ann is stopping with me, She is the home-bird."

Gwenda thought she had never enjoyed such a tea. The tea cakes so
light, the brown bread so delicious; and Ann, with her quiet manners,
made a perfect hostess; so that, when she rose to go, she was as
reluctant to leave the old farmhouse as her entertainers were to lose
her.

"Indeed, there's sorry I am you must go," said Ebben Owens. "Will you
come again some day?"

"I will," said Gwenda, w