Twm in Wales again. His meeting with the “lady of his dream.” “The course of true love never did run smooth,” which Twm ruefully acknowledges.

The dangers of the road had been somewhat reduced by the vigorous prosecution of highwaymen and robbers, many of whom had been lately convicted and executed. Travellers could pursue their way in comparative security, so Twm encountered no “hair-breadth escapes by flood or field” and his journey home, consequently added no exciting incident to swell his gallant reputation. At Reading, he heard of the late execution there of his former antagonist Tom Dorbell.

Our hero’s impatience towards the close of his journey was so great that he rode all night, that he might reach Ystrad Feen a day earlier. How would the “lady of his dream” receive him? With what delight would he not gaze upon her dear face again! When Twm, mounted on a goodly steed, dashed into the court-yard, Lady Devereaux, who witnessed his arrival sprang from her seat and hurried to meet him as he reached the entrance hall. We fear, for the honour of prudery, that her resistance was not very great.When our gallant hero caught her in his arms, and impressed a certain number of kisses somewhere about the region of the cheeks and lips, both of which looked many degrees redder than when, a few minutes before, she complained to Miss Meredith of his strange delay in town.

“Kiss her also, so that she can’t tell tales of me!” said the gay young widow; so Twm, somewhat less ardently, kissed Miss Meredith, and seemed to look about to see if there were any more business of that kind on hand.

“My dear Mr. Jones, you are welcome, most welcome, back to Wales, and trebly welcome to me, and the lonely walls of Ystrad Feen,” were the kind Lady Joan’s first words. Neither of the ladies was slow in discovering the change for the better which had taken place in his address, his former diffidence and indecision of manner being supplanted by easy confidence, and high animal spirits.

Twm was now, indeed, happy with the “lady of his dream;” for he was on much more intimate terms with her than he had, at one time, ever hoped to be. She told him that when her father so suddenly forced her into the coach, to be hurried towards the country, she was joined by two lofty ladies, his maiden sisters, who literally became her jailors in the travelling vehicle. Our hero remembered them well, from seeing them at cards one evening at their brother’s; and he did not fail to describe them to young Martyn, as ugly as heartless pride, ill-temper, long saturnine noses, yellow ribbons and slippers, could make them.

The ancient gentlewomen had chosen the state of ceaseless virginity, they said, to keep up the dignity of the family, which, in their persons, they proudly added, should never be lowered by an unworthy alliance. During their homeward journey, they entertained their victim with ingenious reproaches and disparaging observations respecting “the strange young man who had obtruded himself into their brother’s house—the unknown Mr. Jones.”“Why, the creature has no family,” observed the long-waisted Miss Felina Tomtabby Price. “Then,” replied our heroine, “he is never likely to be pestered with the claims of poor relations, nor the persecution of rich ones.” “No, he is of no stock,” said Miss Euphemia Polparrot Price, following up her sister’s remark; “the creature was only born yesterday.” “Then he is singularly young and harmless,” answered the lady of Ystrad Feen. “And, above all blemishes, he is base-born,” added Miss Felina Tomtabby Price. “That is less his fault than his misfortune, as the Irishman said who warranted his blind mare free from faults,” answered their merry niece.

The young lady was evidently more than a match for the two elder ones, and so these ancient gentlewomen kept a dignified silence, or spoke only to each other, during the rest of the journey; which terminated at length by their seeing her to Ystrad Feen, and betaking themselves to the Priory House at Brecon.

In the course of many private conversations between Miss Meredith and the young widow, the subject of which discourses, strange to say, being invariably Twm himself; she declared herself delighted with him, and Twm, it was easy to see, returned the compliment with interest. At her invitation, he became an inmate of the house, until, as she said, he could put himself to rights. The golden chain and sum of money left to her care, were delivered up to him with considerable additions, in return for his services by a journey to London and from her own private bounty.

With the evident encouragement vouchsafed to him by the lady of Ystrad Feen, Twm was soon madly and irrecoverably lost in his warm affection for her, and there is nothing to surprise any reasonable being when he is told that Twm, with energetic enthusiasm, protested that he admired—nay, loved her! If the lady chided him, it was with such winning gentleness that it seemed to say, “Pray, do so again.” If she turned aside her head to conceal her blushes, smiles ever accompanied them, in coming and retreating; or if she frowned, it was so equivocally, that, for the life of him, our hero could not help considering each transient bend of the brow as so many invitations to kiss them away, which the gallant Twm never failed to accept and obey.

These golden days were too rich in delight to last long. As the good-natured and most virtuous world discovered that they were very happy, and pleased with each other, it breathed forth its malignant spirit, and doubted whether they had a legitimate right to be so; of course, deciding negatively, and consequently awarding to the lovers the pains and penalties of persecution and mutual banishment.

When they had become for some time, undivided companions, and walked, rode, danced at Brecon balls, and resided under the same roof together, although under the strict guidance of moral propriety, as daily witnessed by the lady’s female friend; it will be no wonder that scandal at last became busy with the lady’s fame. An additional incentive for raising these evil reports was that she had rejected the attentions of several of the rural noblesse, who had endeavoured to recommend themselves to her good graces.

All at once like the inmates of a hornet’s nest, the various members of her family, the proud Prices of Brecon, buzzed about her ears and stung her with their reproaches. She bore all with determined patience, until assured that her fame had been vilified, and that she had been described as living a life of profligacy and dishonour. Conscious of rectitude, however indiscreet she might have been, the haughtiness of her spirit now rose, as she indignantly repelled the infamous charges; in the end, requested her dear friends and relations to dismiss their tender fears for her reputation, and keep to their own homes for the future, or at least not to trouble hers.

Although she had treated her officious friends with the contumely they deserved, she could not afford to set at nought, altogether, the opinions of the little world in which she lived; and, tired, irritated, and vexed, by hearing the same tale from day to day, she at last consented to send away her deliverer and friend, as she called him, from the protection of her roof. Our hero, however, could never be brought to distinguish between her real kind feelings towards him, and the constrained appearance which her altered conduct made in his sight.

Free as the air, as he felt himself, he could not understand why a great and wealthy lady was not equally unshackled and independent. Explanations and excuses were entirely thrown away upon him, as he could not, or would not, understand aught so opposed to his happiness and pre-conceived notions.

When, at length, it was made known to him that the separation was inevitable, and the season of it arrived, he received the astounding intelligence like a severe blow of fortune, that struck him at once both sorrowful and meditative. Pride and resentment, from a supposed sense of injury at last supplanted every other feeling; and, starting up with a frenzied effort, he ordered his horse to be got ready, and gave directions for his things to be forwarded to Llandovery; after which, he wrote a note, and sent it to the lady’s room requesting a momentary interview with her alone, before he took his departure.

She came down with a slow, languid step, and met him in the parlour. Her eyes were red with weeping; and, before she uttered a syllable, our hero’s much-altered looks affected her so much, that she burst out into a heavy fit of sobbing. “Do not think hardly—do not feel unkindly towards me, Jones,” were her first words! “I entreat you to give me the credit due to my sincerity, when I assure you that the sacrifice I made on consenting to part with you, was—yes! although I have buried two husbands who loved me tenderly, it was the heaviest of my life.”

Twm replied in a tone and manner that evinced both his pride and his suffering; “I have but few words, madame, and they shall not long intrude upon your leisure. I came here a stranger, and had some trifling claims, perhaps, on your attention. Those claims have been more than satisfied—noble has been your remuneration of my humble services, your beneficence generous and princely.

“A change took place in your destiny; you honoured me beyond my merits, and bade me stand to the world in a new character. You called me friend, your sole friend, in a faithless world; nay, lady, your lover; I loved, and love you with a pure but unconquerable flame! Blame me not if I am presumptuous;—it was your own condescension, your own encouragement, that made me so, and elevated me to an equality with yourself. You gave me hopes to be the future, the only husband of your choice. You stretched forth your hand to aid my efforts, as I eagerly climbed towards the darling object of my aim; but before I attained the summit, you, madame, in the spirit of caprice or treachery, dashed me headlong downwards, to perish in despair.

“Your great and wealthy friends will praise you for this, while the mincing madames and the insipid misses of Brecon shall learn a noble lesson by your conduct, and emulating you, become in their day as arrant coquettes and tramplers on manly hearts, as their limited powers and vanity will permit. But enough! you shall have your generous triumph,—and from this hour I tread the world without an aim, a wanderer in the wilderness, reckless of everything. Advancement, estimation, I here abjure; nor, from this hour, would I raise my hand to save from annihilation the being I am—for life is henceforth hateful to me.

“Lady, farewell!—never more will I cross your path; but you may hear of my wayward steps,—and if in me you are told of a wretched idiot, a being whose mind had perished while his frame was strong, remember that it was yourself who wrought that mental desolation. Or, if they name me as a lawless being, plunged head-long into deeds of guilt, remember it is you, you, madame, who are the authoress of my crimes and sorrows, and, may be, of an ignominious death. And now, madame, farewell!” On which he darted out, mounted his horse, and rode off; while the unhappy lady of Ystrad Feen, whose agitation choked her utterance, caught a last glimpse of him, and fell on the parlour floor in a swoon.