IT was soon known at Ystrad Fîn that our hero had fulfilled his commission by delivering the money with which he was intrusted, at the place of its destination; and great anxiety was expressed by Sir George and his lady for his return to Wales. The baronet, however, was not destined to put his benevolent intentions in his favor into execution, for, about two months after Twm’s departure, on riding home an ill-broken horse, which he had purchased at Brecon, he was thrown, and killed by the fall. His widow, of course, appeared in weeds; but as the last like her former union with the high pedigreed Thomas ap Rhys ap William Thomas Goch, the former proprietor of Ystrad Fîn, was a marriage of interest planned by her father, Sir John Price, of the Priory, Brecon, it was thought her grief on the occasion was not excessive: at least, such appeared to be the general opinion among the gallants of Brecon, many of whom waited anxiously for the throwing off of her mourning, to declare themselves candidates for her heart and hand. Month after month passed away without Twm’s return; and when a whole year had run its course, the lady of Ystrad Fîn, who had frequently expressed her alarms for his safety, at length concluded that he certainly was no longer on the records of the living. The young widow speaking of him one day to a female friend, described him as very beautiful of person, and one who deserved the favors of fortune; the greatest of which, in her estimation, would be his acquirement of rank and station by marriage—by an union with a liberal fair, who could overlook his humbleness of birth in consideration of his personal merit. “But the generous young man,” said she, while the tears started in her fine eyes, “is doubtless dead. I feel for him as an amiable unfriended stranger who deserved a better fate than to die in obscurity, as Nature had formed him for distinction, if not renown.” The conversation then changed, when the widow’s fair friend jocularly alluded to the probability of her again doffing her weeds for bridal robes. “Never!” exclaimed Lady Devereux, “twice have I been a wife and widow, and can safely assert that, love never had a share in the disposal of my hand. Twice have I been bartered to suit the capricious views and family pride of a father; but were it possible for me to utter ‘love, honor, and obey,’ again, within sacred walls, it should be to one whom I love indeed—love, honor, and obey!—and not to the contemporary of my grandfather, or my father’s schoolfellow.”