“Yes, and—and—but I’ll tell you all about that too presently. It is enough to say that he is alive and well—sickness almost, if not quite, gone. I was so sorry for him.”
“Dear Branwen!” said the princess, with an emphatic oral demonstration.
Hafrydda was so loving and tender and effusive, and, withal, so very fair, that her friend could not help gazing at her in admiration.
“No wonder I love him,” said Branwen.
“Why?” asked the princess, much amused at the straightforward gravity with which this was said.
“Because he is as like you as your own image in a brazen shield—only far better-looking.”
“Indeed, your manners don’t seem to have been improved by a life in the woods, my Branwen.”
“Perhaps not. I never heard of the woods being useful for that end. Ah, if you had gone through all that I have suffered—the—the—but what news have you got to tell me?”
“Well, first of all,” replied the princess, with that comfortable, interested manner which some delightful people assume when about to make revelations, “sit down beside me and listen—and don’t open your eyes too wide at first else there will be no room for further expansion at last.”
Hereupon the princess entered on a minute account of various doings at the court, which, however interesting they were to Branwen, are not worthy of being recorded here. Among other things, she told her of a rumour that was going about to the effect that an old witch had been seen occasionally in the neighbourhood of Beniah’s residence, and that all the people in the town were more or less afraid of going near the place either by day or night on that account.