id not
understand me, for shaking her head she said that she had no English, and
was rather deaf. Raising my voice to a very high tone I said:

"Ty Gronwy!"

A gleam of intelligence flashed now in her eyes.

"Ty Gronwy," she said, "ah! I understand. Come in sir."

There were three doors to the house; she led me in by the midmost into a
common cottage room, with no other ceiling, seemingly, than the roof.
She bade me sit down by the window by a little table, and asked me
whether I would have a cup of milk and some bread-and-butter; I declined
both, but said I should be thankful for a little water.

This she presently brought me in a teacup, I drank it, the children
amounting to five standing a little way from me staring at me. I asked
her if this was the house in which Gronwy was born. She said it was, but
that it had been altered very much since his time--that three families
had lived in it, but that she believed he was born about where we were
now.

A man now coming in who lived at the next door, she said I had better
speak to him and tell him what I wanted to know, which he could then
communicate to her, as she could understand his way of speaking much
better than mine. Through the man I asked her whether there was any one
of the blood of Gronwy Owen living in the house. She pointed to the
children and said they had all some of his blood. I asked in what
relationship they stood to Gronwy. She said she could hardly tell, that
tri priodas, three marriages stood between, and that the relationship was
on the mother's side. I gathered from her that the children had lost
their mother, that their name was Jones, and that their father was her
son. I asked if the house in which they lived was their own; she said
no, that it belonged to a man who lived at some distance. I asked if the
children were poor.

"Very," said she.

I gave them each a trifle, and the poor old lady thanked me with tears in
her eyes.

I asked whether the children could read; she said they all could, with
the exception of the two youngest. The eldest she said could read
anything, whether Welsh or English; she then took from the window-sill a
book, which she put into my hand, saying the child could read it and
understand it. I opened the book; it was an English school-book treating
on all the sciences.

"Can you write?" said I to the child, a little stubby girl of about
eight, with a broad flat red face and grey eyes, dressed in a