Winifred's colour faded away, her usual calm and self-possessed look returned; and, stooping down, she bent all her energies to weave an obstinate spray of ivy round the carved base of a pillar, some yards distant from the group.
"Permit me to be your assistant, Miss Lloyd," said the baronet, in a low voice and with an earnest manner. "Miss Dora must excuse me; but I don't see the fun of craning my neck up there from the top of a twelve-foot ladder."
Winifred started a little impatiently, for as he stooped by her side, his long fair whiskers brushed her brow. "Do I annoy you?" he asked, gently.
"O no; but I feel nervous to-night, and wish our task were ended."
"It soon will be, if we work together thus. But you promised to tell me, Miss Lloyd, why your old gamekeeper would not permit me to shoot that hare in the Martens' dingle, to-day."
"Need I tell you, Sir Watkins--a Welshman?"
"You forget that my place is in South Wales, almost on the borders of Monmouthshire, and this may be a local superstition."
"It is."
"Well, I am all attention," said he, looking softly down on the girl's wonderfully thick and beautiful eyelashes.
"The story, as I heard it once from dear mamma, runs thus: Ages ago, there took shelter in our forests at Pennant Melangell, the daughter of a Celtic king, called St. Monacella, to whom a noble had proposed marriage; one whom she could not love, and could never love, but on whom her father was resolved to bestow her."