bright-shining, fragrant, humble cottage life of Wales, with its much-needed assurance, amidst the sorrows of our present times, that some magic of a life still full of faith is lived among these solitary hillsides, among busy towns and in sheltered Welsh valleys. Into human difficulties, too, did my gleam lead me, as gleams have a way of doing. My first adventure was to find a cottage called "Buarthau" (pronounced Bee-arthai). I knew that it was on the hillside beyond Hendra Farm outside of Dolwyddelan, at the head of that valley, the Lledr, which Ruskin has called the most beautiful in the world. A child who spoke very little English summoned her mother, a pale, slender woman with a baby in her arms, to point out the cottage to me. The little girl led me and we climbed the steep hillside. Beside it were wild roses, cool in pink and green; beyond us was a magnificent view of Siabod, Snowdon, Aran, and Moel Hebog, becoming with every upward-mounting step more grand. The old roof of the sixteenth or seventeenth century which I had come to see was partly destroyed, the large curved principals which came almost to the ground had been well rubbed and gnawed by the teeth of kine.

Under a tree near a little cottage we ate our luncheon, a tree which accommodatingly turned itself into a harp. Then we came down, across the Lledr River, and turned and entered the village where the heart of the place is St. Gwyddelan's Church, built about 1500 A.D., with a rood screen removed from some earlier church, a knocker to claim sanctuary still upon the door, and warm hay piled high and spread in the sun over the old graves.

There was another day when I was in search. of an old house still habitable, but of the same date of building as Buarthau. From Bettws-yCoed I followed slowly up a long hill, from which I looked down into an ever-deepening valley, where lay the road leading up past the Conway and the Lledr to Dolwyddelan. After I passed Pentrevoelas, I picked up a little fellow carrying a school-bag. We passed a big empty graveyard place where five new graves were crowded against the wall, the living were planning well for the jostling of the dead who were to come, then I put the little fellow down by the chapel where his mother lived. The road to Giler grew more and more difficult. At last I came to a beautiful old house with a

fortified gate and high surrounding walls. Outside the walls, mother and daughter, farmer and farm hands, were all milking the cows. They courteously led me through the ancient gateway, a friendly place within, for not only did the cats run to meet us, but also the pigs. I ascended the outside steps of the fortified gateway into a room where was the Pryce coat of arms and the date 1623 upon the walls. Then we went into the farmhouse through an old doorway that would be the joy of any antiquary who might behold it. Even this was fortified. Within, the oak panelling, the oak partitions, the seats around the walls, the deep, small-paned, narrow windows, the kitchen, the storeroom, the dairy, the mill—all were as they had been four hundred years ago a little the worse for wear, but still staunch, still comely, still generous and hospitable. One fireplace I stood before was twelve feet long and four or five feet deep. On the way home I saw a flock of lapwings in the meadow. I passed the chapel corner where the little fellow was; I saw two rabbits rubbing noses in the field; and then, facing toward the sun, which was setting over Siabod and the Ogwen Valley, I followed home.