"Well! then, we all thought it was a very good thing, and no doubt the
Almighty had His plans about it, for how could your poor mother take
two babies with her to that far-off land where your father went a
missionary? Well! there was a message come to fetch the lady to the
death-bed of her mother, and she only waited at Dinas long enough to
see you both christened together, Valmai and Gwladys. The next day she
went away, and took your little sister with her. Oh! there's crying
your mother was at losing one of her little ones; but your father
persuaded her it was for the best."

"And what was the English lady's name?" asked Valmai.

"Oh! my dear, ask it not; the hardest word you ever heard, and the
longest; I could never twist my tongue round it. It is with me
somewhere written out on paper, and her directions, and if she ever
moved to another place she would write and tell us, she said; but that
was not likely to be, because she went to her father's and
grandfather's old home, and she has never written to anyone since, as
far as I know."

"Well, indeed," said Valmai, looking thoughtfully into the glowing
embers, "I should like to see my sister, whatever."

"Twt, twt," said the old woman, "there's no need for you to trouble
your head about her; she has never troubled to seek you."

"Does she know about me, do you think?"

"That I can't tell, of course," said Nance, going to the door to have