round Penthryn to Llandutrwyn, and there saw his little Nest become
future Lady of Bodowen.

How often do we see giddy, coquetting, restless girls become sobered
by marriage? A great object in life is decided; one on which their
thoughts have been running in all their vagaries, and they seem to
verify the beautiful fable of Undine. A new soul beams out in the
gentleness and repose of their future lives. An indescribable
softness and tenderness takes place of the wearying vanity of their
former endeavours to attract admiration. Something of this sort took
place in Nest Pritchard. If at first she had been anxious to attract
the young Squire of Bodowen, long before her marriage this feeling
had merged into a truer love than she had ever felt before; and now
that he was her own, her husband, her whole soul was bent toward
making him amends, as far as in her lay, for the misery which, with a
woman's tact, she saw that he had to endure at his home. Her
greetings were abounding in delicately-expressed love; her study of
his tastes unwearying, in the arrangement of her dress, her time, her
very thoughts.

No wonder that he looked back on his wedding-day with a thankfulness
which is seldom the result of unequal marriages. No wonder that his
heart beat aloud as formerly when he wound up the little path to Ty
Glas, and saw--keen though the winter's wind might be--that Nest was
standing out at the door to watch for his dimly-seen approach, while
the candle flared in the little window as a beacon to guide him
aright.

The angry words and unkind actions of home fell deadened on his
heart; he thought of the love that was surely his, and of the new