and also myself and Lady Rosamond, the Merediths of Caer Caradoc having ever been faithful friends of the family. Now we will proceed some few yards farther, and shall then arrive at the bottomless well, which you, Primrose, will doubtless contemplate with some interest. And after that, my men, I must bid you return, for we must not forget that we have tender women in our charge, for whom such rude paths were never destined, and we have already walked some three or four miles." "Now, is it not provoking to be a weak woman?" exclaimed Lady Rosamond. "I am just beginning to enjoy most thoroughly my subterranean career, with never a thought of fatigue, and my tyrant orders our return! Ah, let us go on bravely to Bryn Afon. I will bear home the drooping Primrose upon my own shoulders." "It must not be, dear heart," replied Sir Ivor with a smile. "Moreover, you would see no greater wonders than at present. The passage but winds on mile after mile as now, with more or less of roughness on the pathway, and ever and anon blocked with these wearisome tunnels. Within some three miles or so of Bryn Afon it branches off, however, in two directions, one leading quickly to yon fair castle of Craig Arthur, whose wooded heights and peeping grey turrets hanging just above our river we all love so well, the other winding onwards, as you know, to Bryn Afon. Now, beware how you tread. Turn the lantern this way, Llewellyn, and give me your hand, sweet wife, and your other to Primrose. Here is the bottomless well." They stood and looked down into the black abyss, Lady Rosamond and Primrose gazing into its gruesome depths with a sort of fascinated awe. Above the well was an overhanging mass of rock, and the narrow pathway wound so closely round the dark corner that, but for the strong iron rails with which Sir Ivor had of late years securely fenced it in, an unwary passer-by might only too easily plunge by one false step into its yawning depths. "And is there truly no bottom?" asked Primrose, shuddering, as she thought of Jack's fair young daughter, hurrying with giddy footsteps along the rude pathway, and then, but one step more, and cruel death in this horror of darkness! "So it has always been said," answered Sir Ivor, "and the sad story of the boatman's daughter served only to strengthen the idea, since her body was never discovered." "Dad has ever believed," said Primrose, "that her body was caught upon some ledge of rock at an untold depth. Men tried with ropes to discover it, but it was never found, neither could the bottom of the well be reached by the bravest of them. Dad says, too, there is a horrible tale of a wheel far, far below, which sucks down aught that is thrown into the well, and was so devised centuries ago as a horrid punishment for doomed prisoners. But he does not dare to dwell upon so terrible a thought." "It is so, according to the old traditions," said Sir Ivor, "and legend says, moreover, that by