‘I feel quite sorry for her,’ said Alma, with cheerfulness.  ’I hadn’t realised her position.  We must make her stay as long as she can.  Yes, if it’s fine again, we might drive to Tre’r Caeri.  That would interest her, no doubt.  She likes history, doesn’t she? —­ the same things that you are fond of.’

At breakfast Mrs. Abbott appeared with a much brighter countenance; refreshed in body and mind, she entered gladly into the plans that had been made for the day, talked with less restraint, and showed an interest in all her surroundings.  But her demeanour still had the air of self-subdual which seemed at moments to become a diffidence bordering on humility.  This was emphasised by its contrast with the bearing of her hostess.  Alma had never shown herself to more brilliant advantage; kind interpretation might have thought that she had set herself to inspirit the guest in every possible way.  Her face was radiant with good humour and vivacity; she looked the incarnation of joyous, healthy life.  The flow of her spirited talk seemed to aim at exhibiting the joys and privileges of existence in places such as this.  She represented herself as glorying in the mountain heights, and in solitary tracts of shore.  Here were no social burdens, or restrictions, or extravagances; one lived naturally, simply, without regrets for wasted time, and without fear of the morrow.  To all this Mary Abbott paid the tribute of her admiration, perhaps of her envy; and Alma grew the more animated, the more she felt that she had impressed her hearer.

Harvey wondered at this sudden revival of his wife’s drooping energies.  But he did not consider the phenomenon too curiously; enough that Alma was brilliant and delightful, that she played her part of hostess to perfection, and communicated to their guest something of her own vitality.

They had an exhilarating drive through the mountains to Tre’r Caeri, a British fastness on a stern bare height; crumbled dwellings amid their great protecting walls, with cairn and cromlech and mystic circles; where in old time the noise of battle clanged amid these grey hills, now sleeping in sunlight.  And from Tre’r Caeri down into the rocky gloom of the seaward chasm, Nant Gwrtheyrn, with its mound upon the desolate shore, called by legend the burial-place of Vortigern.  Here Mrs. Abbott spoke of the prehistoric monuments she had seen in Brittany, causing Alma to glance at her with a sudden surprise.  The impulse was very significant.  Thinking of her guest only as a poverty-stricken teacher of children, Alma forgot for the moment that this subdued woman had known happier days, when she too boasted of liberty, and stored her mind in travel.  After all, as soon appeared, the travels had been of very modest extent; and Alma, with her knowledge of many European countries, and her recent ocean voyage, regained the confident superiority which kept her in such admirable humour.