'Tis fine and soft, but white, always white you are wearing--" "Yes, I like white," said Valmai.
"And didn't I dress you in your first little clothes?
Well I remember it." "There's just what I wanted to ask you about, Nance; I love to hear the old story." "After tea, then, merch i, for now I must go and fetch water from the well, and I must milk the goat." "I will fetch the water," said Valmai; "you can go and milk." And taking the red stone pitcher from the bench by the wall she went out, and, sheltered by the ridge of rocks behind which the cottage stood, made her way to the spring which dripped from a crack in the cliffs.

While she waited for the pitcher to fill, she sang, in sheer lightness of heart, the old ballad which not only floated on the air of Abersethin and its neighbourhood, but which she had heard her mother sing in the far-off land of her childhood.
"By Berwen's banks my love has strayed For many a day through sun and shade," and she paused to peep into the pitcher, but finding it only half full, continued: "And as she carolled loud and clear The little birds flew down to hear." "By Berwen's banks the storm rose high," but the pitcher was full, so, resting it on her side, she carried it home, before Nance had caught her goat.

When she returned with her bowl of rich milk, Valmai was busy, with skirt and sleeves tucked up, tidying and arranging the little room; the hearth had been swept and the tea-things laid on the quaint little round table, whose black shining surface and curved legs would have delighted the heart of a collector of antique furniture.
"Oh, calon fach![2] to think your little white hands have been working for me! Now I will cut the bread and butter thin, thin--as befits a lady like you; and sorry I am that it is barley bread.

I don't forget the beautiful white cakes and the white sugar you gave me at Dinas the other day! And your uncle, how is he ?" "Quite well; gone to Pen Morien, and not coming home till to-morrow; but tell me now, Nance fach, of all that happened so long ago--when I was born." "Not so long ago for me, dear heart, as for you.

It is a whole life-time for you, but for me--" and the faded blue eyes filled with tears, and the wrinkled lips trembled a little as she recalled the past--"for me! I had lived my life before you were born.