they would risk life and limb for the sake of
her. Them that the waves and winds make
mock of she cares the most for, because she
mourns night and day for one beneath the
seas; and especially them that are lovers,
the fisher lads and lassies, for whom she
speaks to their parents, and makes a little
golden road for true love to run smooth on—
perhaps, because she once was loved herself,
and loved again, and she knows what it is
for two fond hearts to be sundered."

"My dear Mrs. Aprhys," I said, "I
perceive this is going to be something of a love
story. If you will permit me to run up-stairs
for my slippers, I shall be back directly, and
will not interrupt you again on any account;
but, in the first place, it seems likely the tale
may be a little protracted, and secondly, I
I have always found it impossible to
appreciate sentiment in boots."

This arrangement having been completed,
I nodded to my companion, who had
apparently remained in deep thought during the
interval, and she continued her recital in a
low and feeling voice, as if soliloquising,
rather than addressing another person:

"I can just remember what she was about
five-and-thirty years back; but my old man
could tell you of her much earlier. She lived
up on the hill there with her blind father,
and was as bonnie a maiden as any Snowdon
top could see. Many and many a time I've
seen her lead him through the town to the
market (there was no market-house then),
and there the old carle would chaffer and
wrangle about a penny; for he was awful
miserly, and the folk always let him have his
way in the end, for the young lady, they well
knew, would suffer nobody to lose, but made
it right at last, herself. I cannot say I ever
liked the look of him; but Miss Ellen would
gaze upon his white head and sightless eyes
as though she were a-worshipping. I
suppose there is a love which child bears to
parent, and parent to child, such as I, who
never knew either, can scarcely understand.
Anyways, she doted upon him, and, indeed,
he on her; but there are, you know, two
kinds of affection—one which only cares for
the happiness of its object, and the other,
which looks after its own as well." (I
objected to Mrs. Aprhys' putting the remark
in this personal form, but gravely nodded my
assent.) "She would have died to save his
life, and he would have died for grief perhaps
—afterwards.

"They used to sit together in the summer-
time under their cottage porch, which was
then, as now, a mass of round red roses, for
he loved their beautiful perfume, although of
course their colour was nothing to him; the
lilies in the tarn close by, too, and all the
wild flowers on the hillside, were lost to
him; but he liked to hear the wind coming
through the treetops of the copse, and bending
the feathery tops of the brook-rushes. He
knew all the fairness of nature that way, he
said; and perhaps she does whisper more
things to the blind than she does to us;—not
but that Miss Ellen was always by, to guide
his finger right from east to west. She told
him of the wood-crowned hill Penallyn, which
the sun makes golden in the morning, and
over whose shoulders rises old Snowdon's
hoary head from far away; of the harbour
and the pier, and the great black nets on the
shingle; of the red-sailed vessels putting
out to sea. They could hear, if it was a
calm day, the shouts of the sailors as they
heaved their anchors, the roll of their oars in
the rullocks, the dip of the oar-blades, and all
the pleasant stir of the little town. She read
aloud to him, as from an open book, all
things that passed, and through her music. I
warrant, they lost but little. From quite in
the early morning to sunset, when the
damsels would be crossing the stepping-stones
that lead from the pasture meadows, each
with her uplifted arm and her full pitcher,
and when the mountains to westward were
reddening and burning, the teacher and the
taught would sit there—the girl and her
blind father. Now, I don't mean to say but
that poor Miss Ellen had a delight of her
own in this, besides that of pleasing him.
There was, indeed, one fishing-boat in
Penlanrhyndoldovey, which carried in her eyes a
richer freight than all the rest beside; and
she knew when it was on board by a little
white flag. I think, too, Richard Owen,
whose vessel it was, had generally a glimpse
of a white handkerchief waved from the
cottage on the hill when he set his red sails
or furled them; and it took him, in the
latter case, but a short half-hour to come
from the pier to the porch of roses. It must
have been a great convenience, after all, that
the old gentleman who made the third of
that little company was blind; and I think
Aprhys would have preferred it, at one time,
himself, under the like circumstances. Mr.
Davies soon saw, or heard enough, at all
events, to tell him those two were lovers,
and he hardened his heart against them from
that time. I believe that he was jealous of
Richard Owen because he could see, because
he was young, and because he was generous;
and that he hated him because he had divided,
or stolen a portion of his daughter's heart,
which he wanted wholly for himself. The
old man's ear was keener than that of love
itself to catch young Richard's footfall, as he
came over the hill; and then, upon his sightless
face a shadow would fall, which Ellen
could not but see. He would never speak out
about it, but would mutter, 'They are waiting
for my death—they wish me dead!'
And she heard him, and wept bitterly. This
went on for a long time, and the poor thing
hoped and hoped; but never, I think, had
any intention of leaving her old father.
Richard was no tardy or backward wooer,
and had not much patience to be so sorely
tried; and one day he spoke to her boldly in