Happily the Owen parents had friends and relations, who took a sounder and longer view. Maggie had one of those friendly aunts who are the best counsellors of our youth. That good lady now urged Maggie to stick to the young man. “Mark you,” she would say, “that young man has a great future. Don’t give him up.” Maggie was perhaps like any other young girl, at first a little divided and disturbed—distracted between the calls of love and filial duty. But in the end she did the sound, straight thing—she stuck to her man and won. Once the victory was established, and bold heart had won fair lady, then the parental entrenchments surrendered. The white flag became the flag of loyalty; and Mr. and Mrs. Owen, once won over, became the devoted friends and worshippers of their son-in-law up to the close of their lives. I saw something of them in their home at a later time; and among all those humble folk who have helped David Lloyd George to achieve, those two wise elders, Mr. and Mrs. Owen, held no mean or unworthy place. The years flew swiftly, and by 1888 it became clear that Maggie’s aunt was the true prophetess, and that the young Criccieth solicitor was a coming man. The rumour of him was spreading through the county like the roar of a “spate” from the hills of Snowdon. What was more important, he was earning an income. Not even the thrifty, careful farmer of Ednyfed could doubt any longer. So with the opening of that year it was decided that the marriage should take place. On January 24th, 1888, just after the twenty-fifth birthday of the young bridegroom,[24] David Lloyd George and Maggie Owen were married. The wedding took place in a romantic spot, in the little chapel of Pencaenewydd, an inland Carnarvonshire village, a few miles from Chwilog. Uncle Lloyd took David over by train on that fateful morning to Chwilog; there they breakfasted, and walked over to Pencaenewydd. Uncle Lloyd and the Rev. John Owen performed the simple ceremony; and there were present only relations and a few friends. But it was recorded in the _Carnarvon Herald_ that flags were to be seen everywhere in Criccieth, and in the evening, after the young couple had left for London, the people defied the drizzling rain with a bonfire and fireworks. Already the people knew their friend. Twenty-nine years later (1917) a daughter of these simple spousals was married with the same simplicity in a little Baptist chapel in London. Only the welling, pressing crowd outside the chapel showed that the man who stood by the pulpit giving away his daughter was Prime Minister of England. One wedding was as simple as the other. When they returned to Criccieth from their brief honeymoon, Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd George settled down at first at Mynydd Ednyfed, in the farmhouse of the Owens, and there they spent a few happy years under her parents’ roof. There the elder children were born.