‘No, thank you, Mrs Hody,’ replied Mrs Llewellyn, grandly, ‘no amount of wages would make me send a girl of mine up to the Hall after what you’ve told me. My daughters have been very humbly born and bred, but they are good, virtuous lassies, though, perhaps, I should not be the one to say it. It would break my heart if I could think them capable of taking up with folks as never meant to marry them, and as for their father, well, I do believe he’d take a gun and shoot ’em if he knew of it. So, our Nell, she’ll keep down at Panty-cuckoo, if you please, whilst your family’s at home, and do her duty by keeping the lodgers’ rooms clean and tidy, instead of making the acquaintance of their occupants.’ ‘There, there, mother, say no more about it, pray!’ cried Nell in real distress, as she carried off the tea-tray in order to hide her burning cheeks. It was such conversations as these that made her fearful to think what might happen if her secret ever became known to her parents; which made her contemplate the thought of South Africa with something very much like gratitude, and even remember the condition attached to it without a shudder. She had quite made up her mind by this time that she should never see the Earl of Ilfracombe again. She had never heard him mention Usk, nor even Wales. It was not likely, in her simple ideas, that he would ever find his way there; she thought that they were as widely separated as if the sea divided them. She had but two alternatives--either to end her days at Panty-cuckoo Farm, in the maddeningly quiet manner she was passing them now, or to become Hugh Owen’s wife and go away with him, far, far from everything that could possibly remind her of the happy, thoughtless time she had believed would never end; and, of the two, the last appeared to be the best to her. Yet not without her parents. That was, of course, plainly understood between Hugh and herself. But her father still talked despondingly of his prospects, and of the ultimate necessity of his making some change, and Nell seemed to see the future looming before her, even though it was as yet no larger than a man’s hand. Hugh Owen had resumed his visits to the farm, much to the content of Mrs Llewellyn, and, sometimes, he and Nell took a stroll together in the summer evenings. Only as friends, though. Notwithstanding the half promise she had made him, Nell would not permit him to consider himself anything more than her friend until the matter was finally settled between them, and the young man was quite content it should be so. Perhaps he required a little time also, to recover the great shock experienced on hearing Nell’s story, and preferred to gain her complete confidence and friendship before asking for any closer privilege. But he was happy in knowing that she trusted him, and never doubted but that the end for both of them would be a perfect union.