ue words she would flash upon my
very senses the scene that she was describing. So vividly did she
bring before my eyes the scenery of North Wales, that when at last I
went there it seemed quite familiar to me. And so in describing
individuals, her pictures of them were like photographs.

Graylingham Wood was our favourite haunt. This place and the
adjoining piece of waste land, called the Wilderness, had for us all
the charms of a primeval forest. Here in the early spring we used to
come and watch the first violet uplifting its head from the dark green
leaves behind the mossy boles, and listen for the first note of the
blackcap, the nightingale's herald, and the first coo of the
wood-pigeons among the bare and newly-budding trees. And here, in the
summer, we used to come as soon as breakfast was over with as many
story-books as we could carry, and sit on the grass and revel in the
wonders of the _Arabian Nights_. the _Tales of the Genii_, and the
_Seven Champions of Christendom_, till all the leafy alleys of the
wood were glittering with armed knights and Sinbads and Aladdins. The
story of Camaralzaman and Badoura was, I think, Winnie's chief
favourite. She could repeat it almost word for word. The idea of the
two lovers being carried to each other by genii through the air and
over the mountain tops had an especial fascination for her. I was
Camaralzaman and she Badoura, and the genii would carry me to her as
she sat by Knockers' Llyn, or, as she called it, Llyn Coblynau, on
the lower slopes of Snowdon.

But above all, there was the sea on the other side of the wood, of
the presence of which we were always conscious--the sea, of which we
could often catch glimpses between the trees, lending a sense of
freedom and wonder and romance such as no landscape can lend. Our
great difficulty of course was in connection with my lameness. Few
children would have tried to convey a pair of crutches and a lame leg
down the cliff to the long level brown sands that lay, farther than
the eye could reach, stretched beneath miles on miles of brown
crumbling cliffs, whose jagged points and indentations had the kind
of spectral look peculiar to that coast. For, alas! the holy water
Winifred brought did not 'cure the crutches.' Yet we used to master
the difficulty, always selecting the firmer gangway at Flinty Point,
and always waiting, before making the attempt, until there was no one
near to see us toiling down. Once down on the hard sa