OU are Nurse Gwillim's grand-daughter," "were were the words that greeted Gwen after she had given a shy single knock at the door of her "place."

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'Yes, please, ma'am," she replied with a courtesy.

Who is that young man? I don't allow young men," said the voice.

"My brother, please, ma'am: he's just carrying my little box," returned Gwen.

It was dusk, and the door was only partially opened, but at these words it fully unclosed, and revealed the figure of a little woman in black with a widow's cap on her head.

"Bring in the box, young Gwillim. A soldier! I don't allow soldiers. Why is your brother a soldier?"

"Please, ma'am, he 'listed."

"I'm quartered in Carmarthen for a bit, ma'am." Toom thought it best to speak out.

"Quartered here! Then you'll bring your regiment, I dare say, to look at your sister. This is a bad beginning. I never have any peace. However, you can bring in the box."

Toom placed the small, inoffensive article in the passage, touched his cap with soldierly salute, and recrossed the threshold of the house. Good-bye, Toom," cried Gwen, running after

him.

"I'm sure I shall never be staying here," she added, tears in her voice.

But Mrs. Bowen's bark was worse than her bite. She took Gwen into a tidy little kitchen at the back of the small house, and told her that she felt sure any one belonging to nurse Gwillim would be obedient and honest, and that if she did her work well, she would have a comfortable place.

"I will do my best, ma'am," responded Gwen, courtesying again.

Mrs. Bowen bade Gwen bring her box and bundle upstairs to a slip of a room dedicated to her one maid. There was scarcely room to turn round in it, and Gwen reflected that it was no bigger than mother's bedstead; but she was to have it all to herself, which she thought would be delightful. It contained all that was necessary for cleanliness and tidiness, and was neat as a new pin: but it was so chock full of furniture that she scarcely knew how she should get in and out of bed. But all the house was chock full she afterwards found.

However, she easily accommodated herself to circumstances, and soon, at her mistress's desire, stowed away her things, and went downstairs. Mrs. Bowen took her through the house, which was very old, but small and compact, and consisted of two sitting-rooms, two bedrooms, and Gwen's "slip." Indeed the house might be

called a slip," since the rooms ran in single £ from the street to the garden at the back. "This is the lodger's parlour, and his bedroc is above," said Mrs. Bowen, showing the fr room. "This is mine"-the back-"and lo into the garden. You'll have your kitchen to yourself, for I allow no callers. Plenty to to keep this house clean, though it's small: to wash Patsy, and to wash and iron for me a yourself, and to help me to see to the garden, we do it all between us; to say nothing of cooking, which, your grandmother says, you hav to learn."

Patsy was a white poodle, curled up on hearth-rug in Mrs. Bowen's parlour. Gwen sented the idea that she could not cook, a assured Mrs. Bowen that she could bake and b and make crumpets and plank bread, and vari other culinary dainties.

"Glad to hear it," said Mrs. Bowen curds who, Gwen found afterwards, did not thi any one knew anything but herself.

Now as Gwen was tolerably self-sufficient, an had a fine organ of self-reliance, she had got int the right school according to the system teaching by contradictions. Everything was d by rule in Mrs. Bowen's small establishme even to the exact measurement of the fo necessary to sustain life. "Enough's as good a feast," was one of her favourite axioms, a "Waste not, want not," another. Indeed, p soul, she could not afford to waste.

When Gwen had eaten her supper, she fand she should have liked more, for she had a healthy appetite; but there was, apparently, more to be had. Her mistress superintende while she washed and put away the sur things, both in parlour and kitchen, and bade her come into the parlour for pray's Gwen, who had been accustomed to Mangs and Uncle Laban's extempore petitions in Wes felt her fervour chilled by the English pra read by her mistress; and even the cha seemed to her colder in the latter than the for tongue; but she pulled herself together by t reflection that it did not matter to the Almig what language it was, and remembered how. grandmother used to roll out those hard wea Parthians and Medes and Elamites and dwellers in Mesopotamia," etc., and to say that nations of the earth became one in Christ Jess

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"I will let in Mr. Milbank. He only ca this morning, and will expect to see me; can go to bed. You must get up early, there's plenty to do. "Early to bed,' you the rest," said Mrs. Bowen.

Gwen withdrew with a courtesy and a "g night, ma'am," and went to her small apartme

There she sat down on the foot of her bed, and began to cry. "I wish I was at home with Mamgu, and mother and Dorcas in the cupboard bedstead. Better to sleep two a-top and two a-bottom than all by oneself," she muttered. "And I'm as hungry as Shonny always is. But Mamgu said Mrs. Bowen was obliged to be 'conomical, so it can't be helped."

Here we may remark, that Mrs. Bowen was a woman who abhorred debt. Like many honest people she had the reputation of niggardliness, simply because she kept within her very small income, and took a lodger to eke it out. It is a melancholy fact that the majority have more sympathy with those who are lavish on other people's means, than with those who live modestly on their own. In Mrs. Bowen's proverbial philosophy, "Out of debt, out of danger," held a conspicuous place; and she was what might be called a proverbial philosopher, since she had a proverb ready on all occasions. This was almost as tiresome "as if she had been a professional punster."

Gwen soon wiped her eyes, said her prayers and got into bed. She was asleep in no time. Her digestion never troubled her, and on the present occasion she had not too much to digest. But she had not been more than two or three hours asleep when she was aroused by some sort of unearthly noise. She could not make out

whether it was within or outside the house. It was like the flapping of wings, accompanied by a mysterious sound, and seemed quite fiendish to her imagination. At first she thought it must be birds, but they neither flew nor sang in the night; except the nightingales of which she had heard and read. However, there were said to be no nightingales in Wales. The legend was that St. Patrick had cursed them once upon a time, for interrupting his preaching; and that they had quitted the country for ever. This happened at a wild, wooded and rocky place called Llandewy Brefi, in a neighbouring county; and they certainly had not taken refuge in Carmarthenshire. Only once had she heard of a solitary bird singing in the Dynevor woods at night, and all the countryside had flocked to listen. The learned said it was a stray nightingale, but whence it came or whither it went, they were not prepared to affirm.

Like most of her country women, Gwen was superstitious. She believed in corpse candles and magpies, and all sorts of omens; though these beliefs were gradually disappearing; but above all, she believed in ghosts. She had never seen one, but she felt quite sure the strange noises that continued, at intervals, all through the night, were ghostly. Some one was dead or going to die, she was sure. She thought of her father, and cover her head and stop her ears as she would his form and face haunted her. She had no lucifer matches, for Mrs. Bowen never trusted her maids with such inflammable things; so she had nothing to do but to wait for the dawn. It came at last, and with it the most demoniacal noise she had ever heard in her life. She got up and hastily dressed herself, while a pink light crept in at her little window.

755

Suddenly she heard a door unclose, and a voice exclaiming "Mrs. Bowen! Mrs. Bowen! I can stand this no longer." There was no answer— Mrs. Bowen was either asleep or obtuse. Gwen, terrified out of all propriety, answered for her.

"What do you want please, sir?" she said, dashing into the passage.

"Want! come here," was the reply, and Gwen followed the voice.

All she wanted was companionship.

"Mrs. Bowen, what is the meaning of all these fiends?" cried the voice.

It was of course the lodger. He was dressed and Gwen paused on the threshold of his room, as he entered it. His apartment faced west, and no ruddy streak had penetrated the gray dawn that filled it. He had, however, lighted a candle. Gwen recognized the tourist!

"Oh, sir! I'm glad it's you," she exclaimed; for a familiar face, even though she instinctively disliked it, seemed preferable to a stranger's.

He took her by the arm, and led her in. "What is it?" he asked.

"I-I—don't know, sir, unless it's ghosts," she replied.

The supernatural noises were much worse in this room than they had been in Gwen's. The house and air were full of them. The flapping of wings seemed to be actually in the room, and there was a cry as of something in pain. It was almost like the old mythological story of an imprisoned spirit.

"This has been going on all night," said the tourist. "Will you rouse the landlady? I hate unnatural noises, and must find out what this is."

Gwen began to sob, and as she sobbed, it seemed that the supernatural sounds increased. The air was full of them, and they were like nothing she had ever heard before.

"What is the matter?" came from a half-open door, at last.

"Fiends! ghosts! spirits are the matter," shouted the tourist.

"Oh, I know; I'll come as soon as I'm dressed," returned Mrs. Bowen and shut her door. Gwen was about to depart, but the tourist detained her. The noise grew with the light. "It sounds like birds, sir. They come at night before a death," muttered Gwen. "Open the window. May be the ghost can't get out.'

Gwen's ideas were gathered from many superstitious tales she had heard from time to time.

The tourist obeyed, and looking out, saw a dense cloud of what seemed to him restless spirits.

At this juncture Mrs. Bowen appeared suddenly in hastily-donned widow's garb. She looked severely at Gwen.

"I was frightened, please, ma'am," apologized the girl.

"What at? 'Tis only the jackdaws. I forgot to tell you about them, Mr. Milbank," said Mrs. Bowen, looking at her lodger.

She removed a chimney-board from before the grate, and out tumbled a mass of black matter, while an awful croaking cry, and fluttering of wings was heard up the chimney. A cloud of unmistakable soot accompanied this inroad.

"Poor little things! The nest has fallen down the chimney," said Mrs. Bowen, stooping over the lively mass at her feet. "I don't wonder at your being alarmed, for an accident like this disturbs the whole colony, and they flutter and fidget and make queer little noises, not knowing what to do in the night. Listen to the parent birds! They are chattering up above to their young. We must put a cage in the chimney, and they will come and feed them. They are most interesting."

"Not in my chimney, Mrs. Bowen, I hope," said Mr. Milbank, with an attempt at a smile. "Where do these ill-omened creatures live?"

Mrs. Bowen was too busy with the nest to answer this question. She asked her lodger to be so kind as to go downstairs until she had cleared his room, expressing much sorrow at the accident, and he gladly disappeared. She fetched a large cage, evidently kept for the purpose, and placed the nest of young jackdaws therein, saying she would hang the cage outside in the garden and the old birds would come and feed them. Then she ordered Gwen to fetch dustpan and brush, and sweep up the débris.

Meanwhile, Mr. Milbank, as we will now call him, unbolted the front door, and went out into the street. It was a fresh, bright May morning, and the night was giving place to the dawn. The old town was quiet, or would have been, but for the feathered colonists who had thronged the portion of it in which he had located himself. He could understand the rookery in the trees above the fine old church down below, upon the tower and roofs of which the sun was shining; but he could not make out why that particular house was infested; for there was scarcely a tree near at hand. He glanced up, and the roofs of the houses were all alive with jackdaws, which chattered, flew from friend to friend, and plumed themselves with the glistening rays of the rising sun. He knew that it was a sleepy old-world town, but he had not realized that birds could build unmolested in the roofs and chimneys of that portion of it, and take all the courage out of him as they had done.

He paced up and down the silent street, until he met a policeman. His pale face and disordered appearance, excited the suspicion of this limb of the law, but he explained why he was parading the town at that hour. The policeman smiled, and said strangers were often alarmed by the noise of the birds, but he believed they had been there for generations, and many people thought it would be unlucky to disturb them. The inhabitants were used to them, and as for himself, they were a kind of clock to him, reminding him of the hour.

"They often go to sleep when I wake up, and awake when I am ready for my bed," he said. 'I mean when I am on my beat at night."

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"I suppose you sleep soundly?" asked Mr. Milbank.

"Rather," replied the policeman, leaving his questioner to determine what that adverb, so fashionable in modern days, meant.

"I wish I slept soundly," muttered Milbank, resuming his beat.

As he paced he meditated on the old town be had known when a boy. It was unchanged, s for a few improvements. He paused outside the restored parish church, which was at the end of the street where he lodged. He uttered an uncomplimentary epithet to the rooks and jai daws in the trees above it, and longed for grins enough to shoot them all. He remembered ho he used to meditate in by-gone years, on the cl monuments within the church, particularly the altar-tomb to Sir Rhys Ap Thomas, wh commanded the Welsh under Henry of Bosworth

"He fought for his country; so did General Nott, whose tomb is there also. And was n Bishop Farr burnt in the market-place for his religion? All memorialised in stone. And I what have I done?"

Thus he moralised and turning hastily, traced his steps. The church spire was burnished gold when he turned his back upon it. and he bethought him that it must be late. B few shutters were unclosed in the sleepy ca town, and the door of his lodging was shut; &. he walked on, he scarcely knew where. He stoc. to gaze on the vale and river all aglow in the sunshine; he thought of the antiquity of th place, the Maridunum of Ptolemy-of what Spenser said about it and its neighbourhood; the myriads of human beings who had lived a died there.

"More numerous than those accursed ravens he muttered, as he rushed on to the Pieter Obelisk. "All have done some good in the generation, but I, what have I done?" he added

The town was astir at last, and he suddenly recollected his appearance. Fortunately, nobi knew him, so he reached his lodging unnotice The door was open, and Gwen was on her knees scrubbing the passage He nearly stumbled over her and her bucket.

"There's glad I am, sir!" she exclaime "We thought you had run away; and I had a mind to run away too, but I was afraid of the police."

"Then you don't hate me, Gwenny?" le

animal creation."

"And they are keeping noise out there in th cage," put in Gwen, who had not yet learne that, in service, she should not give an opinic unasked.

Mr. Milbank went to his room, and found t chimney board replaced, and not a straw feather left.

"He do look shocking bad," said Gwen. "He certainly does. What do you know ab him?" asked Mrs. Bowen severely.

Gwen told her in a whisper, the history of e various encounters with the tourist, and h