Your father's mother bore the name, and it is well loved by him. Like you also its sound?" "Yes, dear mother," answered Primrose, "I am well content to bear a name my father loves, and which belongs to the House of Bryn Afon; and I have also ever liked its sound. It was strange, at my Confirmation, to possess suddenly a new and unaccustomed name, and now it seems to me that I must surely be dreaming all these strange new things of which you tell me! Yet it is a happy dream, to find so sweet and loving a mother!" "And you will not despise her for her lowly birth, my darling?" asked Lady Bryn Afon somewhat wistfully. "You, who belong to a proud and ancient race, you will try to think kindly of one who is but too unworthy of being the mother of an earl's daughter, and who, moreover, in her youth has greatly erred, and yet has one more ever-present grief and sin, which she has not yet disclosed to you?" "It is not for me to judge my mother's past," said Primrose gently; "and whatever your birth, dear mother, you show no sign that you have not ever been as great and noble as now. I marvel not that my dear father loved you, for you must indeed have been wondrously beautiful, and fitted by nature for your high station. Do you truly think that I may indeed see him just once ere we travel into Wales? Do you fear lest any likeness in me to you or him may betray me?" "Nay, I fear not so," she answered, "for nature has so evenly blended his likeness and my own in your fair face and features, that you bear no very marked resemblance to either of us, having rather a beauty and radiancy all your own, my sweet one, which makes your fond mother's heart glow with pride as she beholds you! You bear perhaps a greater resemblance to your father's mother, a lady of noble English birth, than to his Welsh ancestors. You shall see her portrait in the long gallery at the castle some happy day, when hand in hand we wander through the silent corridors and deserted chambers of your ancestral home; and by her side you will likewise see the lovely Lady Gwendolen, to whom you do indeed bear a very striking resemblance--insomuch that, somewhat to my terror, your father himself noticed the likeness you bore to his unfortunate sister the last time he beheld you, and on that account felt the more drawn towards you. But he is so wholly unsuspicious of a daughter's existence, that my fears were groundless, and I speedily found, to my relief, that he regarded the likeness as a mere curious coincidence, without a thought of its true cause. She died at the early age of seventeen within the gloomy castle walls, in all the radiance of her youth and beauty!" "Was she too a prey to the cruel curse?" asked Primrose sadly. "Indirectly so, I fear it must be confessed," answered Lady Bryn Afon, "But fear it not, dear heart, for on you it can have no power. Our learned Rhiwallon himself accounts you wholly free from its influence; and," she added smilingly, "you must ne'er