Having put on my clothes, I returned by the way I had come to my vehicle beneath the oak tree.  From thence, for want of something better to do, I strolled up the hill, on the top of which stood the farm-house; it was a large and commodious building built principally of stone, and seeming of some antiquity, with a porch, on either side of which was an oaken bench.  On the right was seated a young woman with a book in her hand, the same who had brought the tray to my friends and myself.

‘Good-day,’ said I, ‘pretty damsel, sitting in the farm porch.’

‘Good-day,’ said the girl, looking at me for a moment, and then fixing her eyes on her book.

‘That’s a nice book you are reading,’ said I.

The girl looked at me with surprise.  ‘How do you know what book it is?’ said she.

’How do I know—­never mind; but a nice book it is—­no love, no fortune-telling in it.’

The girl looked at me half offended.  ‘Fortune-telling!’ said she, ’I should think not.  But you know nothing about it’; and she bent her head once more over the book.

‘I tell you what, young person,’ said I, ’I know all about that book; what will you wager that I do not?’

‘I never wager,’ said the girl.

‘Shall I tell you the name of it,’ said I, ’O daughter of the dairy? ’

The girl half started.  ‘I should never have thought,’ said she, half timidly, ‘that you could have guessed it.’

‘I did not guess it,’ said I, ’I knew it; and meet and proper it is that you should read it.’

‘Why so?’ said the girl.

’Can the daughter of the dairy read a more fitting book than the Dairyman’s Daughter?’

‘Where do you come from?’ said the girl.

‘Out of the water,’ said I.  ’Don’t start, I have been bathing; are you fond of the water?’

‘No,’ said the girl, heaving a sigh; ’I am not fond of the water, that is, of the sea’; and here she sighed again.

‘The sea is a wide gulf,’ said I, ‘and frequently separates hearts.’

The girl sobbed.

‘Why are you alone here?’ said I.

‘I take my turn with the rest,’ said the girl, ’to keep at home on Sunday.’

‘And you are—­’ said I.

‘The master’s niece!’ said the girl.  ’How came you to know it?  But why did you not go with the rest and with your friends?’

‘Who are those you call my friends?’ said I.

‘Peter and his wife.’

‘And who are they?’ said I.

‘Do you not know?’ said the girl; ‘you came with them.’

‘They found me ill by the way,’ said I; ’and they relieved me:  I know nothing about them.’

‘I thought you knew everything,’ said the girl.

’There are two or three things which I do not know, and this is one of them.  Who are they?’

‘Did you never hear of the great Welsh preacher, Peter Williams?’

‘Never,’ said I.