"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."
"How curious!" said Cardo. "You have almost described my father and my home! I think we ought to be friends with so much in common."
"Yes, perhaps," said the girl, looking pensively out to sea, where the sea-horses were tossing up their white manes in the moonlight. "Well, good-bye," she added, holding out her hand.