THE sky once more cloudy and threatening. No news of George. I corrected Morgan’s second story to-day; numbered it Seven, and added it to our stock.

Undeterred by the weather, Miss Jessie set off this morning on the longest ride she had yet undertaken. She had heard — through one of my brother’s laborers, I believe — of the actual existence, in this nineteenth century, of no less a personage than a Welsh Bard, who was to be found at a distant farmhouse far beyond the limits of Owen’s property. The prospect of discovering this remarkable relic of past times hurried her off, under the guidance of her ragged groom, in a high state of excitement, to see and hear the venerable man. She was away the whole day, and for the first time since her visit she kept us waiting more than half an hour for dinner. The moment we all sat down to table, she informed us, to Morgan’s great delight, that the bard was a rank impostor.

“Why, what did you expect to see?” I asked.

“A Welsh patriarch, to be sure, with a long white beard, flowing robes, and a harp to match,” answered Miss Jessie.

“And what did you find?”

“A highly-respectable middle-aged rustic; a smiling, smoothly-shaven, obliging man, dressed in a blue swallow-tailed coat, with brass buttons, and exhibiting his bardic legs in a pair of extremely stout and comfortable corduroy trousers.”

“But he sang old Welsh songs, surely?”

“Sang! I’ll tell you what he did. He sat down on a Windsor chair, without a harp; he put his hands in his pockets, cleared his throat, looked up at the ceiling, and sud............