ing to the blue of the zenith, the rugged moorland was
covered with a mantle of heath and gorse, which shone in the evening
sun in a rich mingling of gold and purple.

"What a glorious evening!" were Will's first thoughts. The birds sang
around him, the sea lisped its soft whispers on the sea below, the song
of a fisherman out on the bay came up on the breeze, the rabbits
scudded across his path, and the seagulls floated slowly above him.
All the sullenness went out of his face, giving way to a look of
pleased surprise, as out of the carpet of gorgeous colouring spread
before him rose suddenly the vision of a girl. It was Morva who came
towards him, her hair glistening in the sunshine, her blue eyes dancing
with the light of health and happiness. Behind a rising knoll stood
her foster-mother's cottage, almost hidden by the surrounding gorse and
heather, for, according to the old Welsh custom, it had been built in a
hollow scooped out behind a natural elevation, which protected it from
the strong sea wind; in fact, there was little of it visible except its
red chimney-pot, from which generally curled the blue smoke of the
furze and dried ferns burning on the bare earthen floor below.

Turning round the pathway to the front of the house, one came upon its
whitewashed walls, the low worm-eaten door deep set in its crooked
lintels, and its two tiny windows, looking out on the sunny garden,
every inch of which was neatly and carefully cultivated by Morva's own
hands; for she would not allow her "little mother" to tire herself with
hard work in house or garden. To her foster-child it was a labour of
love. In the early morning hours before milking time at the farm, or
in the grey of the twilight, Morva was free to work in her own garden,
while Sara only tended her herb bed. There at the further end was the
potato bed in purple flower, here were rows of broad beans, in which
the bees were humming, attracted by their sweet aroma that filled the
evening air; there was the leek bed waving its grey green blades, and
here, in the sunniest corner of all, was Sara's herb bed, which she
tended with special care, whose products were gathered at stated times
of the moon's age, not without serious thought and many consultations
of an old herbal, brown with age, which always rested with her Bible
and Williams "Pantycelyn's" hymns above the lintel of the door. For
nearly seventeen years this had been Morva's home, ever since the
mem