From the lawn I led her by walks and ways forgotten since my boyhood, and since I had gone the same route with her birdnesting and nutting in those glorious Welsh woods, by hedgerows that were matted and interwoven with thorny brambles and bright wild-flowers, past laden orchards and picturesque farms, nooks that were leafy and green, and little tarns of gleaming water, that reflected the smiling summer sky; past meadows, where the sleek brown, or black, or brindled cattle were chewing the cud and ruminating knee-deep among the fragrant pasture; and dreamily I walked by her side, touching her hand from time to time, or taking it fairly in mine as of old, and occasionally enforcing what I said by a pressure of her soft arm within mine, while I talked to her, saying heaven knows what, but most ungratefully wishing all the time that she were Estelle Cressingham. All was soft and peaceful around us. The woods of Craigaderyn, glowing in the heat of the August afternoon, were hushed and still, all save the hum of insects, or if they stirred it was when the soft west wind seemed to pass through them with a languid sigh; and so some of the influences of a past time and a boyish love came over me; a time long before I had met the dazzling Estelle--a time when to me there had seemed to be but one girl in the world, and she was Winifred Lloyd--ere I joined the --th in the West Indies, or the Welsh Fusileers, and knew what the world was. I dreaded being betrayed into some tenderness as a treason to Lady Estelle; and fortunately we were not without some interruptions in our walk of a mile or so to visit her horned pet, whom she had sent forth for a last run on his native hills.