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There is no part of Wales more rural and unspoilt by the inroads of

what is called "civilisation" than so

between the Radnorshire hills Here Nature still holds her own, and

spreads her pure and sie tracts of y hills, rising one behind another

in lovely shades of purple and blue; and far from the haunts of men, or

at all events of town men, many acres of uncultivated land are still

tenanted by the wild e of one of these moors stood a quaint old farounds and woods In front lay a descending

plain of varied beauty, greenstreams, and placid

lakelets; behind it, the wild vales and moor stretched up to the brown

and blue hills

Colonel Meredith had lived there all his life, his ancestors before

him, and here it was that Valmai had found a hohter of the faenial a friend Her beauty had ood looks often do upon people who cannot

boast of the sairl had no

vanity in her character, for her charht before

her in the household Her pet na upon her attractions of person wherever he went

Cecil, a boy of sixteen, was completely her slave, and considered

hiirls vied with

each other in their love and adulation of their friend, so Valmai led

at least an outwardly cal the last two years, and she found herself, to her own