By Berwen Banks

After threading the narrow pathway for half-a-mile or so, they reached

a sudden bend of the little river, where the valley broadened out

somewhat, until there was room for a grassy, velvet meadow, at the

further corner of which stood the ruins of the old parish church,

lately discarded for the new chapel of ease built on the hillside above

the shore.

"How black the ruins look in that corner," said Cardo.

"Yes, and what is that white thing in the window?" said Valmai, in a

frightened whisper, and shrinking a little nearer to her companion.

"Only a white owl. Here she comes sailing out into the moonlight."

"Well, indeed, so it is. From here we can hear the sea, and at the

beginning of the shore I shall be turning up to Dinas."

"And I suppose I must turn in the opposite direction to get to

Brynderyn," said Cardo. "Well, I have never enjoyed a walk from Caer

Madoc so much before. Will they be waiting for you at home, do you

think?"

"Waiting for me?" laughed the girl, and her laugh was not without a

little trace of bitterness; "who is there to wait for me? No one,

indeed, since my mother is dead. Perhaps to-morrow my uncle might say,

'Where is Valmai? She has never brought me my book.' Here it is,

though," she continued, "safe under the crumbs of the gingerbread. I

bought it in the Mwntroyd. 'Tis a funny name whatever."

"Yes, a relic of the old Flemings, who settled in Caer Madoc long ago."

"Oh! I would like to hear about that! Will you tell me about it some

time again?"

"Indeed I will," said Cardo eagerly; "but when will that be? I have

been wondering all the evening how it is I have never seen you before."

They had now reached the open beach, where the Berwen, after its

chequered career, subsided quietly through the sand and pebbles into

the sea.

"Here is my path, but I will tell you," and with the sound of the

gurgling river, and the plash of the waves in his ears, Cardo listened

to her simple story. "You couldn't see me much before, because only

six weeks it is since I am here. Before that I was living far, far

away. Have you ever heard of Patagonia? Well then, my father was a

missionary there, and he took me and my mother with him when I was only

a baby. Since then I have always been living there, till this year I

came to Wales."

"Patagonia!" said Cardo. "So far away? No wonder you dropped upon me

so suddenly! But how, then, did you grow up Welsh?"

Valmai laughed merrily.

"Grow up Welsh? Well, indeed, I don't know what have I grown up!

Welsh, or English, or Spanish, or Patagonian! I am mixed of them all,

I think. Where we were living there was a large settlement of Welsh

people, and my father preached to them. But there were, too, a great

many Spaniards, and many Spanish girls were my friends, and my nurse

was Spanish, so I learnt to speak Welsh and Spanish; but English, only

what I learnt from my father and from books. I don't know it quite

easy yet, but I am coming better every day I think. My father and

mother are dead, both of them--only a few days between them. Another

kind missionary's wife brought me home, and since then I am living with

my uncle. He is quite kind when he notices me, but he is always

reading--reading the old books about the Druids, and Owen Glendwr, and

those old times, and he is forgetting the present; only I must not go

near the church nor the church people, then he is quite kind."