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sensible pause or break, 'Oh, then, of course, you're half Welsh, as I am.'

The instantaneousness and apparent inconsecutiveness of her inference took me aback. Well, m'yes I am half Welsh,' I replied. My mother came from Carnarvonshire. But why then and of course? I fail to perceive your train of reasoning.'

She laughed a sunny little laugh, like one well accustomed to receive such inquiries. Fancy asking a woman to give you "the train of reasoning" for her intuitions!' she cried, merrily. That shows, Dr. Cumberledge, that you are a mere man—a man of science, perhaps, but not a psychologist. It also suggests that you are a confirmed bachelor. A married man accepts intuitions, without expecting them to be based on reasoning. . . . Well, just this once, I will stretch a point to enlighten you. If I recollect right, your mother died about three years ago?'

'You are quite correct. Then you knew my mother?'

'Oh, dear me, no, I never even met her. Why then?' Her look was mischievous. 'But, unless I mistake, I think she came from Hendre Coed, near Bangor.'

'Wales is a village!' I exclaimed, catching my breath. 'Every Welsh person seems to know all about every other.'

My new acquaintance smiled again. When she smiled she was irresistible: a laughing face protruding from a cloud of diaphanous drapery. 'Now, shall I tell you how I came to know that?' she asked, poising a glacé cherry on her dessert fork in front of her. 'Shall I explain my trick, like the conjurers?'

'Conjurers never explain anything,' I answered. 'They say, "So, you see, that's how it's done!"—with a swift whisk of the hand—and leave you as much in the dark as ever.