me
through the ceiling," retorted the mysterious hero. (I should think so,
indeed.)

They shook hands, and beamed on each other a little more, and then Sir
Lionel remembered his flock. Turning to us, he introduced the grizzled
man.

"This is my old friend and guide, Owen Penrhyn," said he, as if he were
drawing us into the circle of a prince. "There never was a guide like
him in the Welsh mountains, and never will be again. Jove! it's glorious
to find him at the old business still! Though, in our day together, we
didn't carry this, eh?"

Then I saw that an Alpine rope was coiled across one of the strong
shoulders clad in rough tweed, and that the great stout boots were
strikingly trimmed with huge bright nails.

"It's like Sir Lionel to put the praise on me," protested the dear old
thing, flushing up like a boy. "Why, he was the best amateur" (he
pronounced the word quaintly and I loved him for it) "I ever see, or
ever expect to see. If he'd gone on as he began, he'd a' broken the
noses of some of us guides. Pity he had to go to furrin' parts! And I'll
be bound he never told you, ladies, of his first ascent of Twll Ddu, or
how he pulled me up out of the torrent by sheer strength, when my
fingers were that cold I couldn't grip the hand-holds? I'd 'a' fallen
clear to the bottom of the Devil's Kitchen if't hadn't been for Mr.
Pendragon, as he was then. And what d' you think, ladies, he says, when
I accused him o' savin' my life?"

"What?" I begged to know, forgetting to give my elders a chance to speak
first.

"'Tommy rot.' That's his very words. I've never forgot 'em. 'Tommy
rot.'"

He beamed on us, and every one in the hall laughed, except perhaps
Emily, who smiled doubtfully, not sure whether or no it was to her
brother's credit to have remarked "Tommy rot" in such a crisis. But
after that, we were all friends, we, and Owen Penrhyn, and the other
men, too; for though we didn't really talk to them till dinner, I knew
by their eyes that they admired Sir Lionel immensely, and wanted to know
us all.

At dinner there was splendid climbing talk, and we heard further tales
of Sir Lionel's prowess; among others of a great jump he had made from
one rock of Trifaen to the other, with only a little square of rock to
light upon, just on the edge of a sheer precipice; a record feat,
according to the old guide. And while the men and we women listened, the
wind outside raged so wildly that now and then it seemed as if a gi