neighbourhood?"

"Yes, she is Essec Powell's niece come home from over the sea. She is
an orphan, and they say the old man is keeping her reading and reading
to him all day till she is fair tired, poor thing."

"Well, it is getting late," said Cardo, "good-night." And his rising
was the signal for them all to disperse, the men servants going to
their beds over the hay loft or stable; while the women, leaving their
wooden shoes at the bottom, followed each other with soft tread up the
creaking back stairs.

In the study the Vicar poured over his books, as he translated from
English into Welsh the passages which interested him most. He was,
like many of the inhabitants of the South Wales coast, a descendant of
the Flemings, who had long ago settled there, and who have left such
strong and enduring marks of their presence.

Their language has long given place to a sort of doggerel English, but
they have never learned to speak the language of the country except in
some of the straggling border villages.

Pembrokeshire, in particular, retains a complete separateness, so to
speak, from the rest of the country, and is often called "Little
England beyond Wales." Thus it was that the English language seemed
always more natural to Meurig Wynne than the Welsh. His sermons were
always thought out in that language, and then translated into the
vernacular, and this, perhaps, accounted in some degree for their
stiffness and want of living interest. His descent from the Flemings
had the disadvantage of drawing a line of distinction between him and