BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK. 35 



was, in that unrelenting blaze, slowly baked away. 

 Probably the children who sat along the banks 

 of the stream and discussed us in Welsh saw it 

 rise like a mist and melt into the blue : Miss 

 O'Flannigan did not see it, but when painting 

 she sees nothing but values. Ordinary humanity 

 does not see values any more than fairies, but 

 Miss O'Flannigan and other artists do. 



It was afternoon when we forsook the simplici- 

 ties of Cannoffice, and went forth to the unknown 

 and the unpronounceable. Five minutes' stroll 

 will exploit the place, with its half-dozen ancient 

 cottages, its '' Zion," and its post-office, where 

 English is a difficulty, and the forwarding of a 

 letter to a given address a problem too deep to 

 be grappled with. But Cannoffice does not seem 

 greatly to care whether its visitors stay minutes 

 or months. Incorruptibly sylvan and indomitably 

 Welsh, it shakes off the dust of each tourist 

 season, and returns to its solitary and sufficing 

 ways of life, and there are moments when one 

 could wish to return with it. 



