s,) to
this dangerous stranger--for stranger he was still to her in almost all
outer circumstances of life. This was partly owing to the interposition
of that narrow river, however trivial a line of demarcation that must
appear to English people, accustomed to cross even great rivers of
commerce, like the Thames, as they would step over a brook or ditch, by
the frequent aid of bridges and boats. In Wales, bridges are too costly
to be common. When reared, some unlucky high flood often sweeps them
away. Intercourse by ferryboats and fords is liable to long
interruptions. The dwellers of opposite sides frequent different
markets, and belong frequently to different counties. The nature of the
soil also often differs wholly. Hence it happens, that sometimes a
farmer, whose eye rests continually on the little farm and fields of
another, on the opposite "bank," rising from the river running at the
base of his own confronting hill-side, lives on, ignorant almost of the
name, quite of the character, of their tenant, to whom he could almost
make himself heard by a shout--if it happens that neither ford, ferry,
nor bridge, is within short distance.

"The people of t'other side," is an expression implying nearly as much
strangeness, and contented ignorance of these neighbours, and no
neighbours, as the same spoken by the people of Dover or Calais, of
those t'other side the Channel. It was not, therefore, surprising that
poor Winifred (albeit not imprudent, save in this new-sprung passion,)
might have said with the poet, too truly,

"I know not, I ask not, what guilt's in that heart;
I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art."

This wild reckless sentiment (though scarcely true to love's nature,
which is above all things curious about all belonging to its object) did
in her case illustrate her feelings. Winifred had lately disclosed to
her dear "unknown" the ruin impending over her father, the result of his
mingled good-nature and indolence, he having permitted the tenants to
run in arrears, and suffer dilapidations, as already said;--the long
neglect, however, of the East Indian landlord being at the root of the
evil, who had been as remiss in his dealings with the steward as the
steward with the tenants. The first appearance of this newly appointed
agent, who announced the early return of his employer to take possession
of the decayed manor-house, was as sudden as ominous of the ruin of old
John Bevan. The hope he held