It was during the alarm of her prolonged fainting, produced by the surprise of this discovery, and the previous agitations, (whereby, perhaps, the prudence rather than the affection of the eccentric lover was impeached,) that her mother, searching her pocket for a bottle of volatile salts, turned forth the letter lately referred to, melancholy evidence of the desperate extremity to which two powerful antagonist passions--love, and filial love--had driven a mind not unfortified by religion, but beleaguered by despair and all its powers, till resolution failed, and peril impended over an otherwise almost spotless soul. As the old man's affections were not wholly weaned from Llaneol, ruinous as it was, his son-in-law had it restored as a temporary summer residence for the old people, as well as occasionally for himself and his beloved bride. It hardly needs to be told, that the arrest and its executors were but parts of the delusion, the amount of real infliction being no more than a ride in a fine morning of some miles. Whether the whole, as involving some little added trouble of mind to that whose whole weight he was going so soon to remove, was too severe a penance for the steward's neglect, may be variously judged by various readers. In the halcyon days that followed, Winifred never forgot the place on the Tivy bank where she slept and dropped her book; nor did the happy husband, melancholic no more, forsake his coracle or his harp utterly, but would often serenade his lady-love (albeit his wedded love also) on some golden evening, as she sat among the cowslips and harebells, that enamelled with floral blue and gold the greensward bank of the Tivy, under the fine sycamore tree--the "trysting-place" of their romantic assignations. FOOTNOTES: [20] Harper. [21] _St Elian._--A saint of Wales. There is a well bearing his name; one of the many of the holy wells, or _Ffynnonan_, in Wales. A man whom Mr Pennant had affronted, threatened him with this terrible vengeance. Pins, or other little offerings, are thrown in, and the curses uttered over them. [22] In the "History of the Gwyder Family," it is stated, that some members of a leading family in the reign of Henry VII., being denounced as "Llawrnds," murderers, (from _Llawrnd_, red or bloody hand,) and obliged to fly the country, returned at last, and lived long disguised, in the woods and caves, being dressed all in green; so that "when they were espied by the country people, all took them for the "_Tylwyth Teg_, the fair family," and straight ran away. NORTH'S SPECIMENS OF THE BRITISH CRITICS. No. VI. SUPPLEMENT TO DRYDEN ON CHAUCER.