her pink cotton jacket, pushed up above the elbows, showed her white,
dimpled arms; while her blue skirt or petticoat was short enough to
reveal the neatly-shod feet, with their bows of black ribbon on the
instep.

Every house in the neighbourhood was busy with preparations of some
sort. At the farmhouses the women had been engaged for days with their
cooking. Huge joints of beef and ham, boiled or baked, stood ready in
the cool pantries; and in the smallest cottages, where there was more
than one bed, it had been prepared for some guest. "John, my cousin,
is coming from 'the Works,'" [5] or "Mary, my sister, will be home with
her baby."

Everywhere hearts and hands were full of warm hospitality. Clergymen
of the Church of England, though generally looking askance at the
chapels and their swarming congregations, now, carried away by the
enthusiasm of the people, consented to attend the meetings, secretly
looking forward, with the Welsh love of oratory, to the eloquent
sermons generally to be heard on such occasions.

Cardo, ruthlessly striding through the dew-bespangled gossamer of the
turnip field, heard with pleasure from Dye that the adjoining field,
which sloped down to the valley, had been fixed upon for the holding of
the Sassiwn. On the flat at the bottom the carpenters were already at
work at a large platform, upon which the preachers and most honoured
guests were to be seated; while the congregation would sit on the
hillside, which reached up to the Vicar's land. At least three
thousand, or even four, might be expected.

All day Cardo looked over the valley with intense interest, and when