After some little persuasion she yielded and sang in a soft undertone the following verse:—­

’I met in a glade a lone little maid,
At the foot of y Wyddfa the white;
Oh, lissom her feet as the mountain hind,
And darker her hair than the night;
Her cheek was like the mountain rose,
But fairer far to see,
As driving along her sheep with a song,
Down from the hills came she.’

[Welsh translation]

’Mi gwrddais gynt a morwynig,
Wrth odreu y Wyddfa wen,
Un ysgafn ei throed fel yr ewig
A gwallt fel y nos ar ei phen;
Ei grudd oedd fel y rhosyn,
Un hardd a gwen ei gwawr;
Yn canu can, a’i defaid man,
O’r Wyddfa’n d’od i lawr.’

‘What a beautiful world it is!’ said she, in a half-whisper, as we were about to part at the cottage door, for I had refused to leave her on the sands or even at the garden-gate.  ’I should like to live for ever,’ she whispered; ‘shouldn’t you, Henry?’

’Well, that all depends upon the person I lived with.  For instance, I shouldn’t care to live for ever with Widow Shales, the pale-faced tailoress, nor yet with her humpbacked son, whose hump was such a constant source of wistful wonder and solicitude to you as a child.’

She gave a merry little laugh of reminiscence.  Then she said, ’But you could live with me for ever, couldn’t you, Henry?’ plucking a leaf from the grape-vine on the wall and putting it between her teeth.

‘For ever and ever, Winifred.’

‘It fills me with wonder,’ said she, after a while, ’the thought of being Henry’s wife.  It is so delightful and yet so fearful.’

By this I knew she had not forgotten that look of hate on my mother’s face.

She put her hand on the latch and found that the door was now unlocked.

‘But where is the fearful part of it, Winifred?’ I said.  ’I am not a cannibal.’

’You ought to marry a great English lady, dear, and I’m only a poor girl; you seem to forget all about that, you silly fond boy.  You forget I’m only a poor girl—­just Winifred,’ she continued.

‘Just Winifred,’ I said, taking her hand and preventing her from lifting the latch.

‘I’ve lived,’ said she, ’in a little cottage like this with my aunt and Miss Dalrymple and done everything.’

’Everything’s a big word, Winifred.  What may everything include in your case?’

‘Include!’ said Winifred; ‘oh, everything, housekeeping and—­’

‘Housekeeping!’ said I.  ’Racing the winds with Rhona Boswell and other Gypsy children up and down Snowdon—­that’s been your housekeeping.’

‘Cooking,’ said Winifred, maintaining her point.

’Oh, what a fib, Winifred!  These sunburnt fingers may have picked wild fruits, but they never made a pie in their lives.’

’Never made a pie!  I make beautiful pies and things; and when we’re married I’ll make your pies—­may I, instead of a conceited man-cook?’