mountains, and how they would then break asunder on the darens and fall back in a drenching mist over the lonely house by Felindre, and for days the farm would be islanded in fog.  But on the summit above them, the sheep were grazing in the sunlight and the buzzards hunting, and in the misty lowlands beneath lay orchards full of faint-scented apple blossom.  “We were not the only decayed family there,” she said.  “There were others, and greater—such as the Grosmonts of Trecastel.  But old Mr. Grosmont had two sons, and father only had three daughters.  I was a sort of ugly duckling, Eddie; they never really liked me.  And I was never happy there.”

“I think I must be like you, darling,” said Edwin.  “I had a rotten time at St. Luke’s at first.  Even now I don’t quite seem to be . . . I don’t know . . . ordinary.”

She smiled and kissed him.

“My father was a dear,” she said, “but mother really hated me.  Your Aunt Carrie was much cleverer and better-looking than me, and so they always made a fuss of her and left me to myself.  She had all the advantages.  You see, I suppose they thought she was worth it.  She was a beautiful, selfish creature, with the most lovely hair.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t lovelier than yours, darling,” said Edwin.

“Then she went and threw herself away, as mother called it, on a man she met at a hunt ball in Hereford.  And she died, poor thing, with her first baby.  It was an awful blow to mother.  It made her more horrid to me than ever.  I suppose she found me such a poor substitute.  If it had been me it wouldn’t have mattered.  I went to keep house for your great-uncle in North Bromwich; and there I met your father.  I have never been really happy.  You see, nobody had ever taken any notice of me—before that.  Then mother began to put all the hopes that had been disappointed in Carrie on Aunt Laura.  Nothing was too good for her.  They spoiled her, and spoiled her.  It was worse when father died and mother was left to do what she liked with the money.  And when your Aunt Laura came here and met Mr. Fellows and married him, your grandmother blamed me.  I couldn’t help it . . . and in any case Mr. Fellows is an awfully nice, quiet man.  I did all I could for her, too, getting her house ready and that sort of thing, and now she’s so dreadfully difficult.  I suppose she’s really annoyed to think that she hasn’t done better for herself with all her advantages of education, and just lets it off on me.  It’s dreadfully awkward, Eddie.  I think she’s even jealous that their house isn’t as big as ours.  I simply daren’t tell your father the sort of things she’s said.  If he knew one of them he’d never forgive her.  He’s like that about anything that affects me.”

“I should be, too,” said Edwin.

“Would you?” she smiled.

“Yes. . . .  You’ve made me hate Aunt Laura already.”

“You mustn’t feel like that, Eddie.  She’s young, and she’s been spoilt.  It isn’t all her fault, probably.”

“If it were any one but you I wouldn’t mind.  But you’re so wonderful.”  He loved to look into her eyes when she loved him.

II

After this they had wonderful times together.  In the mornings Edwin would indulge his glorious idleness among the books of the dining-room shelves, and after middle-day dinner, when his father had gone back to the shop, he would set out with his mother up the lane under the tall elms and through the sloping field that led to the mill pond.  They did not walk very far because she must not be over-tired; but the field was so crowded with wonders that they were tempted further.  Cowslips steeped the meadows in their vinous perfume; and between the saplings of the hazel copse they saw the sheeted hyacinths gleaming like pools that mirror the sky in open places.  Beyond the land of meadows and copses they came to a belt of the old forest, through which they could see up a broad green lane to the very shoulders of the hills: Pen Beacon heaving its fleece of black firs, and the domed head of Uffdown.

His mother would sigh a little when she saw the hills.  In weather that threatened rain from the west they would seem so near, with their contour hard against the watery sky and the cloud shadows all prussian blue.

“Oh, I should love to be there, Edwin,” she would say.

“Can’t we walk there some day, dearest?”

“It’s such a terrible drag up.  We should both be dreadfully tired.”

“Oh, I wish we could, mother; I do wish we could.”

The day of their last walk together, when they came to the end of the green lane and were sitting on the gate, she jumped down on the far side and set off walking up the track.

“Come along, Eddie,” she said, “I’m going up to Uffdown.”

“Oh, mother,” he cried.  “Isn’t it too far?  I should like to carry you!”

And half-doubting, but fearfully eager for adventure, they set off together.  As they climbed upward it seemed that the air grew sweeter every moment, and when they had left the wood behind them they came out on to a stony lane with a surface of grit veined by the tracks of storm-water, and on either side banks of tufted grass along which gorse was swaying in the breeze.  And here the clouds seemed to be racing close above their heads, all dazzling white, and the blue in which they moved was deep and limpid.  Mrs. Ingleby’s gray-green eyes were full of laughter and her face flushed with the climb.

“Oh, mother,” Edwin panted, “what an awful lick you go!  Hadn’t we better sit down a bit?”

“And catch cold!  You careless boy.  We’ll get to the top soon now.”

“But you mustn’t tire yourself.”

She laughed at him.

“Oh, this air is wonderful,” she said.  “Just as if it had come straight out of the blue, all washed and clean.”

On the top of Uffdown where the cloak of pine droops to a hollow between the two peaks, they sat on a dry, yielding hedge-side, where the grass was thick as the fleece of a mountain sheep, and four lovely counties dreamed below them.

“Eddie,” she asked, half joking, “where does the west wind come from?”

Edwin was willing to instruct.

“Oh, I don’t know, dearest—from Wales and the sea, I suppose.”

“Put your head close to mine and I’ll show you. . . .  Those hills that look like mountains cut out of blue cardboard are the Malverns, and far, ever so far beyond them—yes, just to the left you see a level ridge that drops suddenly in the west.  You don’t know what that is, Eddie, do you?”

“No—I don’t like to look at single things.  I like to feel it’s all—what d’you call it?—all dreamy underneath one.”

“But you must look at that.  It’s the mountain, Eddie, close to where I was born.”

“Felindre?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“But I never knew that you could see it from here.  You never told me.”

“You know why.  I told you that I was never happy there.  And now, you see, since the old people died and the land was sold, it really has nothing to do with us.”

“Still, it’s rather wonderful to be looking into—into another country.  It is Wales, isn’t it?”

“Yes—part of it’s in Wales.  Felindre is in England.”

Edwin pondered for a moment.

“I’m rather glad I’m not half-Welsh, anyway,” he said.  “But I wish I’d been there.”

“Do you?” she answered dreamily.  “Yes—I wish we had been there