The town seemed to
be pretty full of lodgings, but as it was the middle of August,
and the very height of the season, they were full-up in dismaying
measure. We found the only one not kept by a Welsh woman in the
ostensible keeping of an Englishwoman, a veteran cockney
landlady, but behind her tottering throne reigned a Welsh girl,
under whose iron rule we fell as if we had been unworthy Saeseneg
instead of Cymric-fetched Americans. We had rejected other
lodgings because, though their keepers had promised to provision
us, it always appeared that we must go out and do the marketing
ourselves. I shall lastingly regret that we did not submit to
this condition, for it would have been one of the best means of
studying the local life. But we held out for the London custom,
and before the Welsh Power, which has so often made itself felt
behind English thrones, could intervene, compliance was promised.
After that it remained for the Welsh Power to make our stay
difficult, and our going easy.
[Illustration: THE BEACH, ABERYSTWYTH]
Otherwise the place was delightful; it was in almost the centre
of the long curve of the Victoria Terrace, with windows that
looked down upon the pebbly beach, and over the blue sea to the
bluer stretch of the Pembrokeshire hills on the south, and the
Carnarvonshire hills on the north, holding the lovely waters in
their shadowy embrace.
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