It is time, I think, to explain the cause of the lovers' quarrel above described. Helen and Edith Beaumont were orphans, left to the guardianship of their brother Leonard, in whose house we have seen the former. Delicacy, induced by a severe illness some months previously, had obliged Mr. Beaumont, accompanied by his wife, to go for the autumn and winter months to the south of France, leaving his sisters at home under the nominal chaperonage of an elderly aunt, who performed her duty to the perfect satisfaction of her nieces by letting them do exactly as they liked. More correctly speaking, perhaps, exactly as Helen liked, for the younger of the two, Edith, a girl of seventeen and four years her sister's junior, could hardly be said to have likes or dislikes distinct from those of Helen. Possibly Mr. Beaumont might not have left the two to their own devices with so easy a mind, had he not quitted home happy in the knowledge of Helen's engagement to his friend and neighbour Malcolm Willoughby. The gentleman in question lived within a few miles of our heroine's home, having succeeded some years before to his father's property. His only sister, Mrs. Lindsay, was at this time living with him for a few months while awaiting her husband's return from India, and though some years older, was, next to her sister, Helen's most valued friend and companion. Malcolm Willoughby was a man of high character, peculiarly fitted, by his unusual amount of sterling good sense, to be the guide of an impulsive, enthusiastic girl like pretty Helen Beaumont, whom to know was to love, and who would have been altogether charming but for her inordinate amount of self-will and inveterate dislike to being, as she expressed it, "ordered" to do or not to do whatever came into her head. She and her sister had real talent as artists, and their spirited and well-executed landscapes bore but little resemblance to the insipid productions of most young lady painters. To improving herself in this direction Helen had devoted much time and labour. Unfortunately, it had so absorbed her thoughts and desires that in its pursuance she was inclined sometimes to forget what were for her more important avocations. Helen's fortunate engagement to Mr. Willoughby had for some time past corrected these only objectionable tendencies in her character, and all had gone smoothly and happily till the date at which our story commences, when, unluckily, some artist friends had filled her head with their descriptions of the exquisite autumn scenery, "effects of foliage," etc., to be seen in a mountainous and hitherto little explored part of Wales. Her imagination, and through her that of her sister Edith, ran wild on the subject, and now nothing would satisfy her but a journey to the spot in question, by themselves, in order that they might enjoy their freedom to the utmost, and revel in the delight of painting some of the wonderful Welsh scenery described to them.