‘Now, mother, suppose you stop your bemoanings and pass round the griddle cakes,’ interposed the farmer. ‘I don’t call it much of a compliment to William and Hetty here, for you to amuse us with praises of our Nell. You heard what Het says, that she means to come to Usk the first holiday she gets, and what do you want more? She might have married and gone out to America, and then you’d have had to do without her altogether.’
‘God forbid,’ said his wife, as she busied herself with looking after her guests.
They were soon started on another subject. Farmer Owen had had an uncommonly heavy crop of hay that year, and as most husbandmen had lost theirs through the drought, his good luck, and the way he had secured it, formed a grand subject of conversation between him and Mr Llewellyn. The little bride had not half exhausted her tales of the wonders she had been introduced to in London, and they were all in full chatter, asking questions and answering them, when Hugh Owen said suddenly,—
‘Who’s this coming down the glen?’
All eyes were instantly directed towards the steep hill which led to the farmhouse, and down which a tall female figure was walking with rather slow footsteps.
‘It’s a lady,’ quoth Mrs Llewellyn, wonderingly. ‘Whoever can she be? It’s a stranger. I’ve never seen her in Usk before.’
The woman was dressed very plainly, but she seemed to wear her clothes differently from the common herd. She raised her head every now and then, expectantly, and yet timidly, and during one of these movements Hetty caught sight of her face.
‘Mother,’ she screamed, as she jumped up from her seat, ‘it’s our Nell!’
‘Nell!’ echoed her mother. ‘Never!’
But Hetty had already left the house, and, meeting the advancing figure, had thrown both her arms around it.