As a
small requital of her valuable services I offered her what money I
had about me, and promised to send as much more as she might require
as soon as I reached the hotel at Dolgelley, where at the moment my
portmanteau was lying in the landlord's charge.
'_Me_ take money for tryin' to find my sister, Winnie Wynne?' said
Sinfi, in astonishment more than in anger. 'Seein', reia, as I'd jist
sell everythink I've got to find her, I should like to know how many
gold balansers [sovereigns] 'ud pay me. No, reia, Winnie Wynne ain't
in Wales at all, else I'd never give up this patrin-chase. So fare ye
well;' and she held out her hand, which I grasped, reluctant to let
it go.
'Fare ye well, reia,' she repeated, as she walked swiftly away; 'I
wonder whether we shall ever meet agin.'
'Indeed, I hope so,' I said.
Her sister Videy, who with Rhona Boswell was walking near us, was
present at the parting--a bright-eyed, dark-skinned little girl, a
head shorter than Sinfi. I saw Videy's eyes glisten greedily at sight
of the gold, and, after we had parted, I was not at all surprised,
though I knew her father, Panuel Lovell, a frequenter of Raxton
fairs, to be a man of means, when she came back and said, with a
coquettish smile,
'Give the bright balansers to Lady Sinfi's poor sister, my rei; give
the balansers to the poor Gypsy, my rei.
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