“I am sure you have the best of hearts, and I have no doubt you have acted with the best intentions. My lover, or, I should rather say, my fortune’s lover, has indeed forsaken me. I cannot say I did not feel it; indeed, I cried very much; and the altered looks of people who used to be so delighted to see me, really annoyed me so, that I determined to change the scene altogether. I have come into Wales, and am boarding with a farmer and his wife. Their stock of English is very small; but I managed to agree with them, and they have four of the sweetest children I ever saw, to whom I teach all I know, and I manage to pick up some Welsh. I have puzzled out a little song, which I think very pretty; I have translated it into English, and I send it you, with the original air. You shall play it on your flute at eight o’clock every Saturday evening, and I will play and sing it at the same time, and I will fancy that I hear my dear papa accompanying me. “The people in London said very unkind things of you: they hurt me very much at the time; but now I am out of their way, I do not seem to think their opinion of much consequence. I am sure, when I recollect, at leisure, everything I have seen and heard among them, I cannot make out what they do that is so virtuous, as to set them up for judges of morals. And I am sure they never speak the truth about anything, and there is no sincerity in either their love or their friendship. An old Welsh bard here, who wears a waistcoat embroidered with leeks, and is called the Green Bard of Cadeir Idris, says the Scotch would be the best people in the world, if there was nobody but themselves to give them a character: and so I think would the Londoners. I hate the very thought of them, for I do believe they would have broken my heart, if I had not got out of their way. Now I shall write you another letter very soon, and describe to you the country, and the people, and the children, and how I amuse myself, and everything that I think you will like to hear about: and when I seal this letter, I shall drop a kiss on the cover. “Your loving daughter, “SUSANNAH TOUCHANDGO. “P.S.—Tell Mr. Robthetill I will write to him in a day or two. This is the little song I spoke of: “Beyond the sea, beyond the sea, My heart is gone, far, far from me; And ever on its track will flee My thoughts, my dreams, beyond the sea. “Beyond the sea, beyond the sea, The swallow wanders fast and free; Oh, happy bird! were I like thee, I, too, would fly beyond the sea. “Beyond the sea, beyond the sea, Are kindly hearts and social glee: But here for me they may not be; My heart is gone beyond the sea.” CHAPTER XII. THE MOUNTAIN INN.