meaning daughter and ab son of in the text: "Victoria, ach Edward, ab George, ab Frederick, ab George, ab Sophia, ach Elizabeth, ach James, ab Mary, ach Margaret, ach Henry VII., ab Edmund, ab Owen, ab Meredith, alias Owen Tudor, of Penmynydd, Anglesea."

Among recent English press notices we have been much gratified by the kindly words spoken of us by journals of such high standing as the Spectator and the St. James's Gazette. Our good Welsh American contemporary, the Cambrian, has just declared that our "Notes and Queries" section, always full of the most varied information," is worth more than the price of the magazine for the year." To the editors of these and other journals we return our sincerest thanks, which we will take leave to accompany with the assurance that the current year will see us more determined than ever to deserve a renewal of their and our readers' good opinion.

Author of "Jill," "The Rebecca Rioter," "A Burglary," "Chloe Arguelle.”

CHAPTER XV.

DOCTORED MILK.

As the rôle of ardent lover made it incumbent on Reginald to manifest impatience to learn his fate, he meant to avail himself of the earliest possible opportunity to ask his cousin for the promised answer which was the real object of his present visit. The day following his arrival being All Saints' Day, she was going to church; and when he discovered this he determined to do likewise, with the double object of finding the opportunity he wanted some time during the walk there and back, and also of ingratiating himself with her by an appearance of piety. The first part, at all events, of his design was, however, not realised. She was acting temporarily as organist to the Nant Olchfa Church, and was uneasy in her mind lest a newly taught hymn (which was to be sung for the first time on that day) might not go quite as steadily as it should do. The consequence of this was that when Reginald went to see if she were ready to start for church, he found she had already gone some time before her anxiety about the hymn having taken her early to school in order to have one more practice with the children before the performance in public. And though after service was over he was more fortunate than before, inasmuch as he had her company on the way back, yet then private conversation was rendered impossible by the presence of the clergyman's daughter, who was one of Gladys' particular friends, and who readily acquiesced in a suggestion that she should lunch and spend the rest of the day at Nant Olchfa. It was evidently useless for him to think of getting a tête-à-tête with his cousin whilst her guest was

D

there, so when he heard the invitation given and accepted, he determined to postpone his love-affair till the morrow, and to turn his attention for the present to his troublesome fostermother. And accordingly he soon after lunch betook himself to her abode to find out what she wanted to see him about.

When he reached his destination he did not at first see her anywhere; but as the house door stood open he knew she must be at home, and walked into the kitchen to wait her appearance. Near the fire was a basket lined with straw, bits of carpet, and whatever had been available to make it warm and comfortable; and in this snug nest was installed the cat, looking still somewhat the worse for wear, but in a decidedly convalescent condition. On the table stood an empty saucer and a jug with milk in it from which Leah had been supplying the wants of the interesting invalid. The visitor's eyes glistened with a sudden, unaccountable eagerness at sight of the milk jug; but at that moment his foster-mother entered the room, and as he turned to greet her the light disappeared from his eyes as quickly as it had come into them.

Having fully expected to be welcomed as warmly as usual, he was astonished and alarmed at the way in which she received him. He saw plainly that his professions of affection and pleasure at meeting her again were not being swallowed with the wonted avidity; her manner to him was stiff, awkward, distrustful, and altogether different from what it had ever been before; and the worst of it was that while these signs convinced him there was something wrong, they yet left him utterly in the dark as to what it could be, so that he had no idea of what steps to take in order to rectify it. Revolving the matter rapidly in his mind, he came to the conclusion that for the present, at any rate, it would be advisable not to appear to have noticed anything amiss; but to wait and see whether, in the course of conversation, he would not get some enlightenment as to the cause of the alteration that disquieted him.

The first topic of her discourse was his courtship.

People said he was going to marry Miss, she said; but no one seemed to speak to it as quite certain. She wanted to know the rights of it; was the thing settled or not? and if not, when was it going to be?

He thought this gave the clue he sought. Remembering how she had urged him to hurry on his suit at express speed, he imagined she was now angry because she thought her advice had been disregarded, and that this, therefore, must be the mysterious grievance which was irritating her against him. If that was all it would be easy enough to put things straight by making her understand that the delay had been none of his doing; and for that purpose he narrated exactly what had taken place in the matter, adding for her further contentment

that he had every reason to think that the answer which he was now certain of having in another day or so would be a favourable one.

Though she listened to the history with interest, she yet did not relax her stiffness or resume her accustomed manner; and he perceived that he had not yet hit the right nail on the head, and that it was not the prolongation of his courtship that had placed him in her black books.

Whilst he was racking his brains in vain to think how he could have incurred her displeasure, she suddenly asked why it was that he had never been near her all the time she was in prison. There was a reproachfulness in her tone and way of asking this which gave him the clue he was looking for; and when once his suspicions were started in the right direction it needed but a very few more words to show him that his cause of offence was not having visited her in gaol. The idea of doing such a thing had never once entered his head until that instant-but he naturally did not think it discreet to mention this, since she had evidently been expecting him to come as a matter of course. So, with an internal objurgation of himself as an ass for not having foreseen and provided for the possibility of her reckoning on his paying her this attention, he began hastily endeavouring to find some plausible excuse wherewith to obviate the ill effects of his neglect.

He bad had to go back to his work in London, he said; and very sorry indeed he had been not to be able to go and see her before he went.

But, she objected, she had heard that when the family moved to Llysderw after the funeral he had gone with them; and as she had been sent to prison before that, she did not see how the return to London had hindered his paying her a visit.

Oh, he had not meant to say that that was the only reason, nor yet that he had gone to London quite immediately after she had been imprisoned. But he had gone very soon after; and till he went he had had to be perpetually dancing attendance upon his cousin so as to make the most of his time whilst he could be with her. He had been doing the agreeable to her morning, noon, and night, and had not had a minute to himself; and thus, though he had longed to go and see after his dear old foster-mother in her troubles, he had yet been unable to do so. She had been constantly in his thoughts, however. When he heard of her being committed for trial at assizes, he had been so upset by the news that he was quite poorly for several days; and he had never been happy since, till he knew her to be once more free and safe out of the dangerous predicament in which she had so generously placed herself on his account. Did she think he was such an ungrateful beast as to have forgotten anyone who had served him so nobly as she

had just done? And did she not know perfectly well also that his love for her was far too true for such forgetfulness to have been possible under any circumstances?

It would have been sweet to her to give full credence to all the smooth words and protestations that issued forth abundantly from his lips. But yet she perceived in a hazy, ill-defined fashion that he had advanced nothing which was a valid, substantial reason why he could not have come to see her if he had been really minded so to do; and, therefore, the doubt over which she had been recently brooding was not to be got rid of, but still stuck to her and troubled her. As for his not caring for her at all, or actually disliking her, such an idea never entered her head for a moment; for even in her most suspicious moods she had never dreamt of questioning that he had some sincere affection for her. But she feared that the degree of it might possibly be less than she had hitherto supposed; and she was not easily to be contented with a small instead of a large share of his heart. And thus she listened to him in uncertainty, not knowing what to think, inclined now to resent his behaviour, and now to believe that perhaps she was mistaken, and that there was nothing in it to resent.

Suddenly his glib fluency was interrupted by a hoarse, melancholy, hollow, somewhat uncanny sound which made him

start.

"What's that?" he exclaimed, stopping short in what he had been previously saying.

The lugubrious sound that disturbed him issued from a cart which had just stopped at the garden gate. Its driver was a man who sold oil to the cottagers in that neighbourhood, making periodical rounds through the district in a vehicle which might be traced by the vile odour of paraffin it left wherever it passed, and announcing his arrival at every customer's abode by blowing a blast on a cowhorn which warned the cottager that now was the time to replenish his or her stock of oil if necessary.

"Tis the man with the oil," said Leah in reply to Reginald's question; "I do want some to-day, too; but stop you and I shall be back now just, so quick as I can fill the can." So saying she took up her oil can and went off through the garden to the road beyond, where the oil-seller and his cart were waiting.

Her departure brought back to her foster-son's eyes the same curious brightness that had come into them when he had first entered the cottage and looked at the jug on the table.

During the time necessary for her to cross the garden, fill her can and return, he would be alone. There stood the milk which she would presently pour into her tea. In his waistcoat pocket was a tin box containing those capsules he had been thinking about on the previous night. And these three ideas