However interesting these objects might formerly have been to Twm, he looked now only in one direction,—towards the spot where he might catch the earliest glimpse of his approaching mistress. Out of all patience at her long delay, he now began to wonder at the cause of it, when at length, to his great dismay, he saw _one_ female hurrying on, and her not the right one, although the faithful Miss Meredith. Having reached the side of the river, which separated her from the base of Dinas, and finding that he was watching her, she placed a paper on the rock and a stone upon it, then kissing her hand to him, sportively, she turned about, and hastened homeward with the utmost precipitation. In his eagerness to overtake her, Twm attempted to run down the declivity, but soon lost his footing, sliding and rolling down several yards, by which he was for a few moments rather stunned. Losing all hope of catching his mistress’s confidante, to learn the cause of her non-appearance, according to promise, he applied to the paper on the rock, which he found to be a note hastily scrawled with a pencil, containing merely these words—“My father has unexpectedly arrived, with several of his friends—can’t see you till at Llandovery on fair day. Yours ever.”—“By the Lord!” muttered Twm to himself, “if this is a coquette’s trick which she puts on me, it will avail her nothing in the end;—mine she is, by promise, and mine she shall be, in spite of the devil, and all her Brecknockshire friends to boot.” Determined to bring his affairs with the widow to a speedy crisis, he changed his clothes, and soon made his way to Llandovery. CHAP. XXVI. Twm’s vagaries and disguises at Llandovery fair. The adventure of the bale of flannel and the iron pot. Quotations from Catwg the wise. Twm discovered. A strange catastrophe. THE day of Llandovery fair arrived; and Twm, who calculated nearly as much on the amusement he intended to create on this occasion for himself, as with meeting his mistress, determined that the grey horse should become the hero of another adventure. Much to their credit, the neighbouring gentry had recently opened a subscription for rebuilding between thirty and forty poor people’s houses, which had unfortunately been burnt down; and our hero resolved that every farthing gained by the grey horse, or otherwise, clandestinely, should be appropriated to this laudable purpose. It was no small satisfaction to him to find that while it mortified the purse-proud vanity of the haughty squires to see so large a sum attached to his name, it had the good effect of increasing their contributions, resolved not to be out-done, in money matters at least, by so obscure a personage as Twm.