Page:My people stories of the peasantry of West Wales.djvu/136



which reason Joshua and the men of Capel Sion were disquieted, and they asked God to deal according to His wisdom with this woman who wilfully strayed from the path of the religious.

Betti jerked her freckled face and snapped her fingers, and boasted in the security of her riches: “Goodness me, must then I be instructed in my doings by a pack of old hens? Sure now, I am not beholden to any in Capel Sion.”

In the foolishness of her vanity she curled her yellow hair like a Jezebel, and she fashioned the front of her hair into a fringe which she wore over her forehead. Her brother Joshua came to her from Llanwen. Betti, heedless of the cow lowing to be milked, was tying up her hair before a looking-glass.

“Woman,” cried Joshua, beholding what his sister was doing, “have you no shame? Will you bring discredit on me then?”