Morcombe meekly. She has read his books, and heard of his comedies, and it seems to her a privilege to see him in the flesh. Living amongst agricultural surroundings and purely commonplace people, she may be forgiven if she has over-exalted ideas about a popular writer. After all, it is the Philistines who are readiest to worship notoriety, which, in their innocence, they mistake for renown.

They enter the pine-wood avenue that leads to the hotel. The sun has shone out hotly again, and all the piny spikes and feathery fir-branches glitter with raindrops, as with innumerable elfin-lamps. This avenue is dusky even on the brightest day, offering welcome shade and coolness after the glare of the common.

Mr. Dewrance leads the way to the coffee-room, sacred to the more select patrons of the Cambria. Hospitable preparation has been made for this festival day; the sideboard is loaded with ham and sirloin, tongue and chicken. The Curate makes straight for a small round table in the bow-window that looks down the avenue to the sunlit common, just the nicest spot in the room. Miss Morcombe and Herman Westray seat themselves opposite each other, the Squire drops into a chair next his daughter, and Dewrance goes to the sideboard to cater for his guests, and to press one of the busy native waiters into his service.

Herman has plenty of time now to study the fair young face on the other side of the cozy round table. As a weaver of romance he is naturally something of a student, and in any stranger may find a type. He looks at this girl thoughtfully, reverently almost. She seems to him a creature of idyllic purity. There is a freshness about her beauty, a youthful candour in its expression, which, to his fancy, is the very spirit of rustic innocence; not the innocence of milkmaid or shepherdess, but of a damsel of lofty race reared in the sweet air of her native hills, simple as Perdita, high-bred as Rosalind.

She is certainly beautiful, more absolutely beautiful than he had believed her at first. The dark rich hair which waves a little at the temples, the clear arch of the pencilled eyebrow, the noble modelling of mouth and chin, might satisfy the most exacting critic. And this is no doll-faced beauty. There is mind in that fair young face.

'I was so pleased to hear from Mr. Dewrance that you are the Mr. Westray,' she begins somewhat shyly; the author whose books have given me so much pleasure.'

'Have you really read them?' asks Herman, delighted. I did not know my scribble had penetrated so far.'

'Do you suppose we are quite Boeotians? We have our box from Mudie once a month; and I have read, at least I think I have read, all you have ever published."

'My daughter is a tremendous reader, devours a boxful of literature monthly-travels, biographies, Lord knows what. I believe she thinks herself a cut above novels, unless they are some

thing out of the common. I don't know how she finds time to open a book, what with her schools and her housekeeping and her gardening and her church-going.'

There is generally one hour in the day that I can contrive to steal for a quiet read,' says Miss Morcombe, and perhaps I enjoy my books all the better because I am obliged to limit my enjoyment.'

Have you so many duties ?' asks Herman, with only a languid curiosity. His interest in the Squire's daughter does not extend beyond her face. He is in no wise concerned to know the manner of life she leads in her barbarous fastness amid the wild fern-clothed hills.

Many duties!' exclaims Dewrance, coming back laden with a salad-bowl and cruet-stand, and attended by a waiter with roast fowls and tongue and a dainty shoulder of lamb. I should think she has indeed. There are not many parish priests who work harder than Miss Morcombe. You should see her schools. I don't know any

in England so perfect, on a small scale of course, but absolutely perfect.'

Herman pushes back the loose brown hair from his forehead and gazes at Miss Morcombe with a puzzled look. He has ever detested everything that verges upon strong-mindedness, independence, selfreliance, in a woman. The women he has admired hitherto have been to the last degree helpless, to the last degree frivolous; women who were more concerned in the supply of stephanotis at Coventgarden than in the price of bread; women who would have thought, like Marie Antoinette, that when bread was dear the poor might take to eating buns; women who were ready to die if they missed a favourite opera, and had neuralgia if their dressmaker disappointed them; women who were a little low' on the slightest provocation, and required to be sustained with pints of Pommery or Cliquot between breakfast and kettledrum; women whose high-priestess was fashion, and whose religion was dress; whose gravest reading was a risqué social article in the Saturday Review, and whose poetry and sentiment were derived from modern French novels.

Such women as these Herman had hitherto found ineffably charming; not good enough for marriage, or the unrestrained confidence of friendship, but delightful for airy social companionship. Women with whom to waste a summer afternoon at Wimbledon or Hurlingham; with whom to discuss the last fashionable scandal in cleverly-chosen half words; from whose fair hands to receive the refreshing cup of orange-scented pekoe, or the invigorating glass of vermuth. With such as these-the useless lilies of life's field-he had gaily ridiculed the women who toil and spin-the women with mind; the serious virgins who rise at cockcrow on saints' days, and are never found with lamps untrimmed. He had ridiculed

feminine effort of all kinds—philanthropic, artistic, Evangelical, or Anglican; had scouted the idea of feminine duty; and had taken for the motto of his ideal woman the lotos-eater's listless burden, 'Let us alone.'

And now behold him face to face with a young woman whose duties are manifold, and whose calmly beautiful face impressed him as no other face has done since those days of adolescence when every fair-haired schoolgirl seemed a Helen.

They talk about literature, Dewrance expounding positive opinions in that sledge-hammer voice of his; Herman less vehement, but more trenchant, his wit having a sharper edge than the Curate's. Miss Morcombe talks unrestrainedly; her favourite poet is Tennyson; her favourite poem, the Idyls of the King. For the sensuous in art and poetry she has no sympathy-nay, she shrinks from the very names of those writers who are its chief exponents, and is silent when Herman praises a singer of the De Musset school. She has read no French novels, but she knows Châteaubriand and Lamartine by heart, Herman discovers. Rococo rather, thinks the modern man of letters, with his catholic appreciation of modern turns of thought. This Squire's daughter seems to him tolerably well read in all that is best worth reading; a being of infinite knowledge as compared with his lilies of the field, who take a pretty pride in their ignorance, and make it, as it were, a new accomplishment to know nothing.

Dewrance talks of art while he mixes the salad. He is a man who has travelled much, and learned many things; among others, the making of a salad, on which he prides himself.

'What an insipid business luncheon is in a country hotel!' he exclaims. 'Now I could take you to a restaurant in the Seven Dials, where I used to go a good deal before I was in orders, and give you half a dozen hors-d'œuvres by way of appetisers. Here one must put one's trust in a bowl of lettuces-no tarragon or chervilnot an anchovy for love or money-the nearest lobster to be heard of at Tenby.'

Miss Morcombe confesses to an appetite which does not require to be stimulated by anchovies or caviare.

'Papa and I breakfasted at seven,' she says, 'and a ten-mile drive is an excellent appetiser.'

Strange!' thinks Herman; here is a woman not ashamed to admit that she can eat.'

His social sirens have, for the most part, languid appetites, but a considerable power of suction. They exhibit a placid unconsciousness when attentive serving-men fill and refill their glasses, and absorb the contents thereof unawares.

The luncheon proceeds gaily. Dewrance is always good company, and the others have plenty to say. The Squire eats and drinks and

holds his peace. He is neither literary nor artistic; his land is heavily mortgaged, and he has cares which make him thoughtful. Herman looks at him, and wonders how a man so eminently commonplace can have such a daughter.

Two o'clock strikes, and the room grows clear. The second part of the Eisteddfod begins at half-past two. Miss Morcombe puts on her gloves, an operation which Herman watches attentively, as if it were the most interesting spectacle to see pale-gray kid-gloves drawn upon a pair of shapely hands, not so white as the hands of those sirens he wots of-somewhat sunbrowned, indeed, but the perfection of form.

'I think it is time for us to go, papa. You have to take the chair, you know, this afternoon.'

"Yes,' sighs the Squire, it's a pity Jones doesn't do it. better at that kind of thing than I am.'

:

He's

'O but, papa, you know what you ought to say the pleasure you feel in the development of native talent, the softening and elevating influence of music, how it brightens all our homes-the humblest as well as the loftiest; and how glad you are to see so many familiar faces round you, all smiling and happy; and how you hope this first Eisteddfod ever held at Llandrysak will not be the last; and how you will do your utmost to maintain the custom among us; and so on, and so on.'

'I shouldn't want any "so on" through all that,' says the Squire. tongues. I wish you could speak the

or "so forth," if I could get You women have such glib speech for me, Editha.'

I wish I could, papa. I should like to stand up among the people I've known from childhood, and tell them how I love their customs and themselves. Indeed, I wish I could.'

'And indeed, Editha, you would do it well, and they would like

to hear you.'

They rise to go, Dewrance and Westray both in attendance. 'You won't care to hear any more of the Eisteddfod,' says Miss Morcombe, smiling at Herman.

'Yes; I mean to attend afternoon service-I beg your pardon, Dewrance, the afternoon contest.'

'But you were tired of the music this morning.'

'I shall not be tired this afternoon. If five-and-twenty young Welshwomen come forward to sing "Angels ever bright and fair"it's in the programme, I think-and hold on for hours, I will show no sign of impatience. I will stand "Pious Orgies" like a lamb. I will submit unconditionally to the Welsh song in character.'

'I'm glad you have a corner of your heart to spare for our dear old country,' says Editha, with a pleased look.

'I only hope that I may not leave more than a corner of my heart in your principality,' he answers, with ever so slight a smile. THIRD SERIES, VOL. V. F.S. VOL. XXV.

C

They go back to the tent in the sunlight. All the scene is gay and bright; no more umbrellas. Smart bonnets and feathered hats shining out, little the worse for the morning's rain; faces smiling and rubicund, after copious refreshment of a teetotal character at Mr. Cates's.

Squire Morcombe makes his speech, on the lines laid down by his daughter. If trite and somewhat feeble, he at least appears friendly, and the audience cheer lustily. The harp strikes up with a lively Welsh air; then comes Pious Orgies,' by divers working men in their Sunday clothes, who acquit themselves not amiss, for these Welshmen have a natural love of and capacity for music, and sing part-songs with the zest and tunefulness of German students trolling out their Volkslieder.

The afternoon wears on; there is a good deal of repetition, but Herman Westray endures with resignation. He is seated next Miss Morcombe, and is making a study of her character, with a view to putting it to some literary use by and by. He talks to her in the pauses of the entertainment, which are numerous; and although Angels ever bright and fair' has been sung seven times consecutively, he thinks the contest rather too short than otherwise when all is over, and Mr. Morcombe takes his daughter to the wagonette which is waiting for them outside, in company of various other conveyances.

I wish you were going to stop for the concert,' says Dewrance. Herman says nothing, but has his desires upon the same subject.

'I wish we were, but it is such a long drive to the Priory, and papa likes to dine at home.'

'Never got a decent dinner at Llandrysak,' answers the Squire decisively. Bring your friend over to-morrow, Dewrance, and let him see the ruins and Editha's conservatories.'

I should be too delighted,' says Westray, not waiting for the Curate to respond.

'I've been thinking of bringing him,' replies Dewrance, 'remembering what you were kind enough to say about my friends.'

two.'

'Of course, of course. Be sure you come early; we lunch at

Miss Morcombe is seated in the wagonette by this time; they all shake hands with effusion.

'Auf Wiedersehen,' says Herman, as he releases Editha's hand, with just that shade of tenderness which he is apt to assume in his converse with women. A mere trick of tone and manner, perhaps, but not without effect.

'Editha,' he says to himself softly, as he and Dewrance walk up the avenue; a fine Saxon name; it suits her admirably.'

'Well, what do you think of Miss Morcombe ?' asks the Curate