beyond belief, were gathered, chattering, round the
yard of an old, grey, square-towered church.

"What's going on?" I thought. "It's not Sunday, not the birthday of a
Potentate, and surely they don't keep Saint days in this manner. It must
be a wedding. Yes--there's a favour! Let's go in and see!" And, passing
the expectant groups, I entered the church and made my way up the aisle.
There was already a fair sprinkling of folk all turned round towards
the door, and the usual licensed buzz and whisper of a wedding
congregation. The church, as seems usual in remote parishes, had been
built all those centuries ago to hold a population in accordance with
the expectations of its tenet, "Be fruitful and multiply." But the whole
population could have been seated in a quarter of its space. It was
lofty and unwarmed save by excitement, and the smell of bear's-grease.
There was certainly more animation than I had ever seen or savoured in a
truly rural district.

The bells which had been ringing with a sort of languid joviality, fell
now into the hurried crashing which marks the approach of a bride, and
the people I had passed outside came thronging in. I perceived a young
man--little more than a boy, who by his semi-detachment, the fumbling of
his gloved hands, and the sheepishness of the smile on his good-looking,
open face, was obviously the bridegroom. I liked the looks of him--a cut
above the usual village bumpkin--something free and kind about his face.
But no one was paying him the least attention. It was for the bride they
were waiting; and I myself began to be excited. What would this young
thing be like? Just the ordinary village maiden with tight cheeks, and
dress; coarse veil, high colour, and eyes like a rabbit's; or
something--something like that little Welsh girl on the hills whom I
once passed and whose peer I have never since seen? Bending forward, I
accosted an apple-faced woman in the next pew. "Can you tell me who the
bride is?"

Regarding me with the grey, round, defensive glance that one bestows on
strangers, she replied:

"Aw, don't 'ee know? 'Tes Gwenny Mara--prettiest, brightest maid in
these parts." And, jerking her thumb towards the neglected bridegroom,
she added: "He's a lucky young chap. She'm a sunny maid, for sure, and a
gude maid tu."

Somehow the description did not reassure me, and I prepared for the
worst.

A bubble, a stir, a rustle!

Like everyone else, I turned frankly round. She was