's
all.'

Mrs. Abbott wished to climb Cam Bodvean the great hill, clad in tender
green of larch-woods, which overlooked the town. For the toil of this
ascent Alma had no mind; pleasantly excusing herself, she proposed at
breakfast that Harvey and Mrs. Abbott should go alone; they might
descend on the far side of the mountain, and there, at a certain point
known to her husband, she would meet them with the dogcart. Harvey
understood this to mean that the man would drive her; for Alma had not
yet added the art of driving to her various accomplishments; she was,
indeed, timid with the reins. He readily assented to the plan, which,
for some reason, appeared to amuse and exhilarate her.

'Don't be in a hurry,' she said. 'There'll be a good view on a day like
this, and you can have a long rest at the top. If you meet me at
half-past one, we shall be back for lunch at two.'

When they started, Alma came out to the garden gate, and dismissed them
with smiling benignity; one might have expected her to say 'Be good!'
as when children are trusted to take a walk without superintendence. On
re-entering, she ran quickly to an upper room, where from the window
she could observe them for a few minutes, as they went along in
conversation. Presently she bade her servant give directions for the
dogcart to be brought round at one o'clock.

'Williams to drive, ma'am?' said Ruth, who had heard something of the
talk at breakfast.

'No,' Alma replied with decision. 'I shall drive myself.'

The pedestrians took their way along a winding road, between boulder
walls thick-set with the new leaves of pennywort; then crossed the one
long street of the town (better named a village), passing the fountain,
overbuilt with lichened stone, where women and children filled their
cans with sweet water, sparkling in the golden light. Rolfe now and
then received a respectful greeting. He had wished to speak Welsh, but
soon abandoned the endeavour. He liked to hear it, especially on the
lips of children at their play. An old, old language, symbol of the
vitality of a race; sounding on those young lips as in the time when
his own English, composite, hybrid, had not yet begun to shape itself.

Beyond the street and a row of cottages, they began to climb; at first
a gentle ascent, on either hand high hedges of flowering blackthorn,
banks strewn with primroses and violets, and starred with the white
stitchwort; great leaves of foxglove giving promise for fu