"Not so long ago for me, dear heart, as for you. It is a whole life-time for you, but for me--" and the faded blue eyes filled with tears, and the wrinkled lips trembled a little as she recalled the past--"for me! I had lived my life before you were born. My husband was dead, my boy drowned, and my little Mari, the last and brightest, had suddenly withered and died before my eyes--a fever they say, perhaps it was indeed; but the sun has never shone so brightly, whatever, since then; the flowers are not so sweet--they remind me of my child's grave; the sea does not look the same--it reminds me of my boy!" and she rocked herself backwards and forwards for some time, while Valmai stroked with tender white fingers the hard, wrinkled hand which rested on her lap. "Well, indeed," said the old woman at last, "there's enough of my sorrows; let us get on to the happy time when your little life began, you and your twin sister. When you were washed and dressed and laid sleeping together in the same cradle, no one could tell which was which; but dir anwl! who cared for that? too much joy was in our hearts that your dear mother was safe. No one at least, except the grand English lady who was lodging there at your grandfather's house. Her husband was dead, and she was very rich, but she had no children; and when she heard your mother had twins, she begged of us to let her have one for her very own, and she was like thorns to us because we could not tell for sure which was the oldest." "Well, go on, Nance," said Valmai, as the old woman stopped to rake the peat embers together. "Well! then, we all thought it was a very good thing, and no doubt the Almighty had His plans about it, for how could your poor mother take two babies with her to that far-off land where your father went a missionary? Well! there was a message come to fetch the lady to the death-bed of her mother, and she only waited at Dinas long enough to see you both christened together, Valmai and Gwladys. The next day she went away, and took your little sister with her. Oh! there's crying your mother was at losing one of her little ones; but your father persuaded her it was for the best." "And what was the English lady's name?" asked Valmai. "Oh! my dear, ask it not; the hardest word you ever heard, and the longest; I could never twist my tongue round it. It is with me somewhere written out on paper, and her directions, and if she ever moved to another place she would write and tell us, she said; but that was not likely to be, because she went to her father's and grandfather's old home, and she has never written to anyone since, as far as I know." "Well, indeed," said Valmai, looking thoughtfully into the glowing embers, "I should like to see my sister, whatever." "Twt, twt," said the old woman, "there's no need for you to trouble your head about her; she has never troubled to seek you." "Does she know about me, do you think?"