"I can speak Welsh," said Gwenda, turning to that language.
"Oh! wel din!" said the old man, relieved, and continuing in Welsh, "'tisn't every lady can speak her native language nowadays."
"No. I am ashamed of my countrywomen, though I speak it very badly myself," said Gwenda.
"There's my son Will now, indeed I'm afraid he will soon forget his Welsh, he is speaking English so easy and smooth. Come here, Ann," the old man called, as his daughter passed busily backwards and forwards spreading the snowy cloth and laying the tea-table. "The lady can speak Welsh!"
"Oh! well indeed, I am glad," said Ann; "Will is the only one of us who speaks English quite easily."
"Yes, Gwilym speaks it quite correctly," said Ann, with pride, "but he has a Welsh accent, which Will has not--from a little boy he studied the English, and to speak it like the English."
"Will is evidently their centre of interest," thought Gwenda, "and how little he seems to think of them!"
Here the little curly pate came nestling against her knee.
"Hello! rascal!" said the old man, "don't pull the lady's skirts like that."
"He is a lovely boy," she said, thus securing Ann's good opinion at once.
The little arms wound round her neck, and before tea was over she had won her way into all their hearts.
"I am sorry my sons are not here," said the old man; "they are good boys, both of them, and would like to speak to such a beautiful young lady."
"Yes, yes. Will, my second son, is a clergyman. He is curate of Llansidan, 'tis about forty miles from here; but Gethin, my eldest son, is a sailor; indeed, I don't know where he is now, but I am longing for him to come home, whatever; and Will does not come often to see me. He is too busy, I suppose, and 'tis very far."
And Gwenda, sensitive and tender, heard a tremble in the old man's voice, and detected the pain and bitterness of his speech.
"Young men," she said, "are so often taken up with their work at first, that they forget their old home, but they generally come back to it, and draw towards it as they grow older; for after all, there is nothing like the old home, and I should think this must have been a nest of comfort indeed."
"Well, I don't know. My two sons are gone over the nest, whatever; but Ann is stopping with me, She is the home-bird."