What a sweet good lady your mother was! I never saw the like before or since.

No sooner did I set eyes upon her but she so took my fancy that I would have gone round the world with her.

We Welsh are a very hot people, they say--not cold-blooded, as the English are.

So, wise or foolish, right, wrong, or what might be, nothing would do for me but to take service, if I could, under Mrs.Castlewood.Your father was called Captain Castlewood then--as fine a young man as ever clinked a spur, but without any boast or conceit about him; and they said that your grandfather, the old lord, kept him very close and spare, although he was the only son.

Now this must have been--let me see, how long ago ?--about five-and-twenty years, I think.