Of course the girls had a hearty laugh over this. “Did they say what the witch was like?” asked Branwen.
“O yes. People have given various accounts of her—one being that she is inhumanly ugly, that fire comes out of her coal-black eyes, and that she has a long tail. But now I come to my most interesting piece of news—that will surprise you most, I think—your father Gadarn is here!”
Branwen received this piece of news with such quiet indifference that her friend was not only disappointed but amazed.
“My dear,” she asked, “why do you not gasp, ‘My father!’ and lift your eyebrows to the roots of your hair?”
“Because I know that he is here.”
“Know it!”
“Yes—know it. I have seen him, as well as your brother, and father knows that I am here.”
“Oh! you deceiver! That accounts, then, for the mystery of his manner and the strange way he has got of going about chuckling when there is nothing funny being said or done—at least nothing that I can see!”
“He’s an old goose,” remarked her friend.
“Branwen,” said the princess in a remonstrative tone, “is that the way to speak of your own father?”