ld I come and pay a visit at
Abergwrnant before I left the neighbourhood? Only twenty-five miles, and
a coach from B----!" "Would I, before the shooting began, come to
Craig-y-bwldrwn, and stay over the first fortnight in September?" I
could have quartered myself, and two or three friends, in a dozen places
for a month at a time. And, let me do justice to the warm hospitality of
North Wales--these invitations were renewed in the morning: and were I
ever to visit those shores again, I should have no fear of their having
been yet forgotten.

Captain Phillips had told us, that when we left the table, "the girls"
would have some coffee for us, if not too late; and Willingham and
myself, having taken a turn or two in the moonlight to get rid of the
excitement of the evening, bent our steps in that direction. There were
about as many persons assembled as the little drawing-room would hold,
and Clara, having forgotten her headach, and looking as lovely as ever,
was seated at a wretched piano, endeavouring to accompany herself in her
favourite songs. Willingham and myself stood by, and our repeated
requests for some of those melodies which, unknown to us before, we had
learnt from her singing to admire beyond all the fashionable trash of
the day, were gratified with untiring good-nature. Somehow I thought
that she avoided my eye, and answered my remarks with less than her
usual archness and vivacity. I could bear it on this evening less than
ever; a hair will turn the scale, and I had just been, half ludicrously,
half seriously, affected by Welsh nationality. One cannot help warming
towards a community which are so warm-hearted among themselves. Visions
of I know not what--love and a living, Clara and a cottage--were
floating dreamlike before my eyes, and I felt as if borne along by a
current whose direction might be dangerous, but which it was misery to
resist. Willingham had turned away a minute to hunt for some missing
book, which contained one of his favourites; and, leaning over her with
my finger pointing to the words which she had just been singing, I said
something about there being always a fear in happiness such as I had
lately been enjoying, lest it might not last. For a moment she met my
earnest look, and coloured violently; and then fixing her eyes on the
music before her, she said quickly, "Mr Hawthorne, I thought you had a
higher opinion of me than to make me pretty speeches; I have a great
dislike to them." I be