who had loved and left her, the child in whose tiny grave she had buried all the love and tenderness left in her heart-these were but shadowy memories which had long slumbered undisturbed through the busy round of practical life.

Some years after these sorrowful happenings she had married a small farmer, a widower with several children, and, she was proud to remember, had never failed in her duty to him and to them; they had grown up and gone their ways in the world, he had died at a good age, kindly and carefully nursed by the wife who had always been a good wife to him and whose youthful romance he had known and accepted with the disregard common to his class. She kept on the little farm of Tynycae which he had left her at his death, and on its scanty revenues she lived, completely independent of her step-sons, whose offers of help-personal or pecuniary-she had several times rejected with scorn. Her desire was, through her own efforts, to hand it on to them if possible the better for her administration, and no amount of hard work or self-denial in this cause had troubled her until advancing years, for she was now over eighty, had made it necessary that she should have the help of a girl in the house. Since that time-some three or four years back-a whole bevy of damsels had made of Tynycae a temporary abode. Short and stormy was the sojourn of most of them, and swift their departure, unattended with regrets on either side. For even to the best of workers Mrs. Jones was a hard mistress, and an unduly exacting one, so that her name had quickly become a byword among them, and she found it increasingly difficult to get any but the roughest and most indifferent assistance. Much had she suffered from the idleness, the incompetence, the insubordination of these maidens, but never, oh! never, she said to herself, had she come across such a specimen as this new importation.

Marged or Margaret Williams was the name she had given, her age sixteen, was never in service before and had no English, but was strong and could work well. Her appearance, though certainly unkempt, was not unattractive. She was small but active and wellproportioned. A round plentifully freckled face was lit up by a pair of sparkling and most mischievous blue eyes, and crowned by an untidy tangled-looking crop of yellow hair.

That her character should be a puzzle and perplexity to Mrs. Jones was not remarkable, for she had been a dweller in or near towns all her life, whereas Marged Williams knew nothing of the haunts of men. She had lived the whole of her short life on a lonely hill-slope in a wide and lonely valley. The little bwthyn or hut where she and her parents dwelt stood high on this hillside, which stretched in long uneven ridges covered with great grey boulders down to the shores of a desolate lake. Round about them other hills, grey and grim and treeless, rose like giant barriers

against the sky, shutting out the world of men from the scattered dwellers in the valley.

Marged's father worked at a farm some two miles away, close to the shores of Llyndu. He was a gloomy morose man who loved to talk of his grievances. At home his complaint was of the burden of his work, at the farm it was of the ill-health of his wife. On Sundays he put these topics aside and, having walked four miles over the hills to the chapel he attended, would on his return discourse of death and the judgment, drawing such dismal pictures of the eternal punishment in store for sinners as made his sickly wife to tremble and turn pale, and the yellow curls of his little daughter almost to bristle on her head. But, in spite of these drawbacks, the child had on the whole a most happy life. The feeble energies of Mrs. Williams were barely sufficient to enable her to struggle through the little housekeeping duties that devolved upon her, and the effort left her no mind or strength to give any sort of training to her child, so that, from the time she could toddle, Maggie had simply run wild. She spent most of her time out of doors scrambling about the mountain sides, developing a sturdy frame, a fearless disposition, and an immense capacity for physical enjoyment. As she grew older she would cheerfully help her ailing mother with the housework, but she showed the strongest disinclination to acquire any book-learning,' and so, at a time when school boards. were not, and the nearest school was four miles away, she was successful in evading any kind of education. The grim Calvinist doctrine as enunciated by her father was all she knew of religion, and it impressed on her mind nothing of love and beauty, but only the vision of an awful Deity Who sat continually in judgment, somewhere behind the sky, to punish all who dared transgress against His laws. Of Him she felt a lively fear when-as she thought-His voice spoke in the thunder that rolled among the hills, or His glance flashed in the lightning that lit up their sullen peaks. But these fears would pass with the storm that had aroused them, and with them all thoughts of any world but the one which she lived in and enjoyed with all the enjoyment of a thoroughly healthy little animal.

As she grew older this love of Nature and of wild outdoor life grew stronger, but it remained a physical, not a spiritual joy. To the beauty of her surroundings she could scarcely be held more consciously alive than were the mountain ponies who beheld them with her. She was a part of Nature, one with mountain, lake, and sky, and would no more have questioned their moods of storm and sunshine, or marvelled at their changing beauties, than she would have wondered at the workings of her own body. She loved most of all the feeling of strong and glorious life that filled her as she came rushing down the slope of Bryn Ynyr in the face of a boisterous

wind, her scanty petticoats swirling round her, and her yellow elf-locks streaming out behind; but she liked, too, the sense of ease and rest that came to her as she sat on summer evenings by the shores of Llyndu, and cooled her feet in its quiet waters while she watched the sun sink behind the Penllyn range in the west.

A little change in the monotony of her life was afforded by the mistress of Llyndu Farm, where her father worked, who in exceptionally busy times would sometimes give her a day's employment there, and to Maggie these days were a great treat, for, though she had then to subject herself to a certain amount of restraint, there were compensations to be found in the good and plentiful food provided, and in the talks with those who knew something of the world beyond the hills and had wonderful information to impart to her concerning it.

When she was fifteen her mother died, and some months later her father told her curtly that he was about to marry Lizzie Edwards, whom she knew as one of the women-workers at Llyndu, an active bustling woman who was reputed to possess quite a tidy sum in savings. The marriage took place in due course, the new Mrs. Williams was installed in her new home and promptly proceeded to take in hand the education of her stepdaughter. As was inevitable, rebellion quickly followed the endeavour, and stormy scenes were daily enacted in the once peaceful cottage. An appeal to the 'master' produced a threat of corporal punishment for the next offence committed by his mutinous daughter, and a stern injunction to discipline her unruly mind and obey her stepmother in all things lest God should punish her as severely as she deserved.

It was evident to the girl that for her peace and happiness were no longer to be found at home, and happy she must be at any cost. She made up her mind to leave her native valley and seek employment in that world beyond the hills' about which she felt a growing curiosity, and to do so at once, for she knew from the workers at Llyndu that now in May was the time when on all the farms change of service was taking place.

Her mind once made up, she lost no time in acting on the decision she had arrived at. Before dawn on the morning after the interview with her father, she stole from the cottage while its inmates were still sleeping, and had soon put the range of Penllyn between her and her home. With some difficulty she found her way to the little market town of Llan Austin, and there met and entered into the contract with the mistress of Tynycae.

As we have already said, a month had elapsed since this great change in her life had come about. A mere nothing of time as counted by days and hours, but it covered an immense distance in the history of Maggie's spiritual development. Love had entered into her hitherto loveless life, had changed her from a child to a

woman, and aroused within her a thousand new feelings and emotions. It was one of her fellow-servants at Tynycae who was responsible for this awakening.

Only two men were permanently employed on the farm, their services being supplemented at especially busy times by those of a couple of boys. Of these two men, the elder, Evan Thomas, a cousin of the mistress, was a sort of general worker and overseer combined, the younger, Griffith Griffiths, was ploughman and shepherd. Griffiths was a queer sulky sort of fellow of about twenty-eight, tall and lanky, with a long cadaverous face, and a manner which caused him to be often looked upon by strangers as half-witted. But he was an exceedingly steady and capable workman, one indeed after Mrs. Jones's own heart. His chief peculiarity seemed to be a very marked aversion from all and especially the younger members of the other sex. Most of the morwynion who had at various times been in service at Tynycae had endeavoured to exchange at some time or other a playful sally with the ploughman, for the very fact of his holding so aloof from them added piquancy to the attempt, but they invariably met with the same reception. Sullen silence or a fierce look was all they got for their pains, and it was even said of one damsel, who had been unusually pressing in her attentions, that she had come crying to Mrs. Jones with an ugly crimson mark on her face, left there by the hand of Griffith. At any rate she got little sympathy from her mistress, who was herself said to stand a little in awe of her surly workman, but valued his services too highly to resent any defect so trifling as bad manners. * Serve thee right for a forward wench,' the old woman said; 'perhaps thou❜lt mind thy work for the future and let the men alone.'

To Griffith therefore, as may be imagined, the advent of a new morwyn was of no importance whatever, and in fact it was several days before he even noticed that the vacant place of general scrub' had once more been filled. It was the unusual conduct of Brechan, the speckled cow, that first brought Marged Williams under his notice. Brechan was a queer-tempered animal, not at all unlike Griffith himself in character; it almost seemed, in fact, that some secret sympathy existed between them, for when she was in one of her tantrums, a matter of rather frequent occurrence, and refused to allow any one near her for the purpose of milking, it was only Griffith who could persuade her of the extreme desirability-more especially for herself-of speedy submission.

On a late afternoon some three or four days after Maggie's arrival at Tynycae, Brechan was seized with one of her unaccountable fits of bad temper. Evan Thomas had been severely prodded by her horns, Mrs. Jones and her bucket twice overset by her heels, and at last Griffith, who was working in the furthest field, was sent for. During this pause in operations, Maggie, who had been sent over to

Plas Mawr the big house close by-with some milk, came into the yard. She had been noted at Llyndu for her fearlessness and success with obstinate milkers, and now grasping the situation at once, she walked without a moment's hesitation up to Brechan and gave her a friendly slap. The animal sniffed at her, sniffed again, seemed to think that the attentions of the stranger might not be unpleasant to her, and friendly relations were soon established. When Griffith entered the yard he found Brechan standing in apparently the best of tempers to yield her sweet store to the coaxing fingers of the new maid.

'Well, Griffith, Brechan is liking Marged as well as thee, it seems,' remarked his mistress; there is no need to thee to stay; she is all right again, whatever.'

As Griffith, vouchsafing no reply, turned on his heel, he was aware of two glances seemingly directed towards him, a placid wink from the large brown orb of Brechan the cow, a merry gleam shot through tangled yellow hair from the blue eye of Maggie the maid.

He went back to his work, but the memory of the mischievous look, of the yellow head pressed into the cow's side, seemed to linger in his mind. He took the first opportunity that offered of having another look at her, the result pleasing him apparently, for he looked again and yet again. He was merely a dull and selfish animal who had never felt drawn towards man, woman, or child before, and would have been entirely unable to analyse any emotion within himself, but he felt vaguely that something in this girl's merry fearless look attracted him. He would pause in his work to watch her as she came up the steep farm road hanging audaciously to Brechan's black tail, and shouting in her high sweet voice some old Welsh song. He began to exchange a gruff boreu da or nos dawch with her, and by and by little conversations took place between them; true, it was Maggie who did most of the talking, but Griffith was a willing listener and would even sometimes condescend to a slow smile. Then one evening as they were making haycocks of the sweet clover grass in the river-meadows his hands touched hers, and a strange thrill shot through him; he kissed her that night, as they were following the waggon up the hill, and henceforth his subjugation was complete.

As for Maggie, the ignorant pleasure-loving child of Nature, she had entered into a kingdom of joy and happiness such as she had never dreamed could be; her own kingdom where Griffith was king and she his queen, and it was always summer in the glory of their love. Her soul awoke, all Nature glowed with a new beauty, all life with a noble meaning. Woman-like, she cast a halo of perfection around him and saw in him all she wished to see.

Small wonder that Mrs. Jones was annoyed, for Griffith was no longer the steady workman he had been, and things were continually