could imagine a strain of merriment and fun blending with the
ecstatic notes of a skylark soaring and singing, one might form some
idea of the laugh of Rhona Boswell. Ah, what days they were! Rhona
would come from Gypsy Dell, a romantic place in Rington Manor some
miles off, especially to show us some newly devised coronet of
flowers that she had been weaving for herself. This induced Winnie to
weave for herself a coronet of sea-weeds, and an entire morning was
passed in grave discussion as to which coronet excelled the other.

A year had made a great difference in Winnie, a much greater
difference than it had made in me. Her aunt, who was no doubt a
well-informed woman, had been attending to her education. In a single
year she had taught her French so thoroughly that Winnie was in the
midst of Dumas' _Monte Cristo_. And apart from education in the
ordinary acceptation of the word, the expansion of her mind had been
rapid and great.

Her English vocabulary was now far above mine, far above that of most
children of her age. This I discovered was owing to the fact that a
literary English lady of delicate health, Miss Dalrymple, whose
slender means obliged her to leave the Capel Curig Hotel, had been
staying at the cottage as a lodger. She had taken I the greatest
delight in educating Winnie. Of course Winnie lost as well as gained
by this change. She was a little Welsh rustic no longer, but a little
lady unusually well equipped, as far as education went, for taking
her place in the world.

She understood fully now what I meant when I told her that we were
betrothed, and again showed that mingling of child-wisdom and poetry
which characterised her by suggesting that we should be married on