father, who was leaving the scene of festivity. Before he left he
reminded Owen of his promise, and added -

"Perhaps, sir, you do not know me. My name is Ellis Pritchard, and I
live at Ty Glas, on this side of Moel Gest; anyone can point it out
to you."

When the father and daughter had left, Owen slowly prepared for his
ride home; but encountering the hostess, he could not resist asking a
few questions relative to Ellis Pritchard and his pretty daughter.
She answered shortly but respectfully, and then said, rather
hesitatingly -

"Master Griffiths, you know the triad, 'Tri pheth tebyg y naill i'r
llall, ysgnbwr heb yd, mail deg heb ddiawd, a merch deg heb ei
geirda' (Three things are alike: a fine barn without corn, a fine
cup without drink, a fine woman without her reputation)." She
hastily quitted him, and Owen rode slowly to his unhappy home.

Ellis Pritchard, half farmer and half fisherman, was shrewd, and
keen, and worldly; yet he was good-natured, and sufficiently generous
to have become rather a popular man among his equals. He had been
struck with the young Squire's attention to his pretty daughter, and
was not insensible to the advantages to be derived from it. Nest
would not be the first peasant girl, by any means, who had been
transplanted to a Welsh manor-house as its mistress; and,
accordingly, her father had shrewdly given the admiring young man
some pretext for further opportunities of seeing her.

As for Nest herself, she had somewhat of her father's worldliness,