, the eldest, was my apprentice, and must become famous in
consequence; and when he was twenty-five years old, and money became
no object to me (through the purchase by a great art critic of the very
worst picture I ever painted; half of it, in fact, was Bob's!), I gave
the boy choice of our autumn trip to California, or the antipodes.

"I would rather go to North Wales, dear uncle," he answered, and then
dropped his eyes, as his father used when he had provoked me. That
settled the matter. He must have his way; though as for myself, I must
confess that I have begun, for a long time now, upon principle, to shun
melancholy.

The whole of the district is opened up so by those desperate railways
that we positively dined at the Cross-Pipes Hotel the very day after we
left Euston Square. Our landlady did not remember me, which was anything
but flattering. But she jumped at Bob as if she would have kissed him;
for he was the image of his father, whose handsome face had charmed her.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Aydyr was making as much noise as ever, for the summer had been a
wet one; and of course all the people of Aber-Aydyr had their ears wide
open. I showed Bob the bridge and the place of my vision, but did not
explain its meaning, lest my love for him should seem fiduciary; and
the next morning, at his most urgent request, we started afoot for that
dark, sad valley. It was a long walk, and I did not find that twenty
years had shortened it.

"Here we are at last," I said, "and the place looks the same as ever.
There is the grand old Pen y cada, with the white cloud rolling as
usual; to the left and right are the two other summits, the arms of
the chair of Idris; and over the shoulder of that crag you can catch a
glassy light in the air--that is the reflection of Tal y Llyn."

"Yes, yes!" he answered impatiently. "I know all that from your picture,
uncle. But show me the place where my father died."

"It lies immediately under our feet. You see that gray stone down in the
hollow, a few yards from the river brink. There he sat, as I have often
told you, twenty years ago this day. There he was taking his food, when
someone---- Well, well! God knows, but we never shall. My boy, I am
stiff in the knees; go on."

He went on alone, as I wished him to do, with exactly his father's
step, and glance, figure, face, and stature. Even his dress was of the
silver-gray which his father had been so fond of, and which the kind
young