with that she went away to serve another customer. I thought to myself these Welsh country people do not fare so badly. [Illustration: A BIT OF WILD WALES.] Some way beyond Carno we began to climb out of the valley and reached a wide moorland, encircled by misty mountains. A moorland waste enlivened only by the dreary gleams of peaty pools, but how buoyant and bracing were the breezes that blew over it! The air was inspiriting if the scene was not. From the moorland we descended steeply to the Tal valley with its tumbling river by our side making wild music as it dashed on its downward way. We were Amongst a multitude of hills, Crags, woodlands, waterfalls, and rills. That describes our road in two short but sufficient lines, and what need is there of more? At Cemmaes we found ourselves in the wider valley of the Dovey; then we rose again to another moorland high above it, with far-reaching prospects over the river to a confusion of bare hill-tops rising above the deep woods below. The Dovey is a river much favoured by fishermen, as our eyes bore witness, but one irate angler I afterwards met, who had fished it without success, declared to me that there were more fishermen on its banks than fish in the stream. Possibly he was prejudiced; possibly the river is much poached, for the Welshman is a born poacher, though, being religiously minded, I am told he considers it a sin to poach on Sundays. I did not reach Aberdovey that night, for as I drove into Machynlleth, a town of unpronounceable name to me, the rain came down, and finding a good inn there I proceeded no farther, though Aberdovey was but ten miles on, but it was late and at Machynlleth I was certain of my quarters. Aberdovey could wait. There were two fishermen in the porch of my inn when I arrived; they had just returned from the river with empty creels. "It will be a good day to-morrow for fishing after the rain," one of them consolingly exclaimed. What virtue there lies in to-morrow and in the promise of it!